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MEMOIRS 



OF 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 

u 
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. 

CONTAINING 

AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS, 

INTERSPERSED WITH 

ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERS 

OF SEVERAL OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED PERSONS OF HIS TIME, 

WITH WHOM HE HAS HAD INTERCOURSE AND CONNEXION. 




LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR LACKINGTON, ALLEN, Sc CO. 

TEMPLE OF THE MLSES, 

riN9r,CKV-sQC.\nE, 



1800'. 



% 




-■*"" GIFT 
ISO*, JAME3 B. bhi!.: 
^>w aULY 26, 1*** 



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\1 6 



Printed by J. Wright, St. John's Square, Clerkenwell. 



■ 



MEMOIRS 



OF 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 



xVT the close of the year 1804, whilst I am still in possession of my 
faculties, though full of years, I sit down to give a history of my 
life and writings. I do not undertake the task lightly and without 
deliberation, for I have weighed the difficulties, and am prepared 
to meet them. I have lived so long in this world, mixed so generally 
with mankind, and written so voluminously and so variously, that 
I trust my motives cannot be greatly misunderstood, if, with strict 
attention to truth, and in simplicity of style, I pursue my narrative, 
saying nothing more of the immediate object of these memoirs, than 
in honour and in conscience I am warranted to say. 

b I shall 



2 MEMOIRS OF 

I shall use so little embellishment in this narrative, that if the 
reader is naturally candid he will not be disgusted ; if he is easily 
amused he will not be disappointed. 

As I have been, through life, a negligent recorder of dates and 
events relating to myself, it is very possible I may fall into errors of 
memory as to the order and arrangement of certain facts and 
occurrences, but whilst I adhere to veracity in the relation of them, 
the trespass, I presume, will be readily overlooked. 

Of many persons, with whom I have had intercourse and con- 
nection, I shall speak freely and impartially. I know myself 
incapable of wantonly aspersing the characters of the living or the 
dead; but, though I will not indulge myself in conjectures, I will 
not turn aside from facts, and neither from affectation of candour, 
nor dread of recrimination, waive the privilege, which I claim for 
myself in every page of this history, of speaking the truth from my 
heart: I may not always say all that I could, but I will never 
knowingly say of any man what I should not. 

As I am descended from ancestors illustrious for their piety, 
benevolence and erudition, I will not say I am not vain of that 
distinction ; but I will confess it would be a vanity, serving only to 
expose my degeneracy, were it accompanied with the inspiration of 
no worthier passion. 

Doctor Richard Cumberland, who was consecrated bishop of 
Peterborough in the year 1691, was my great grandfather. He was 
author of that excellent work entitled Be kgibus Naturce, in which 

he 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 3 

he effectually refutes the impious tenets of Hobbes, and whilst he 
was unambitiously fulfilling the simple functions of a parish priest 
in the town of Stamford, the revolution having taken place, search 
was made after the ablest protestant divines to fill up vacancies in 
the hierachy, and rally round their late endangered church. — 
Without interest, and without a wish to emerge from his obscurity 
and retirement, this excellent man, the vindicator of the insulted 
laws of nature, received the first intelligence of his promotion from 
a paragraph in the public papers, and, being then sixty years old, 
was with difficulty persuaded to accept the offer, when it came 
to him from authority. The persuasion of his friends, particularly 
Sir Orlando Bridgeman, at length overcame his repugnance, and to 
that See, though very moderately endowed, he for ever after devoted 
himself, and resisted every offer of translation, though repeatedly 
made and earnestly recommended. To such of his friends as pressed 
an exchange upon him he was accustomed to reply, that Peter- 
borough was his first espoused, and should be his only one ; and, in 
fact, according to his principles, no church revenue could enrich 
him ; for I have heard my father say, that, at the end of every year, 
whatever overplus he found upon a minute inspection of his accounts 
was by him distributed to the poor, reserving only one small deposit 
of twenty-five pounds in cash, found at his death in his bureau, 
with directions to employ it for the discharge of his funeral expenccs ; 
a sum, in his modest calculation, fully sufficient to commit his body 
to the earth. 

Such was the humility of this truly christian prelate, and such 

B 2 his 



4 MEMOIRS OF 

his disinterested sentiments as to the appropriation of his episcopal 
revenue. The wealthiest See could not have tempted him to accu- 
mulate, the poorest sufficed for his expences, and of those he had 
to spare for the poor. Yet he was hospitable in his plain and 
primitive style of living, and had a table ever open to his clergy 
and his friends : he had a sweetness and placidity of temper, that 
nothing ever ruffled or disturbed. I know it cannot be the lot of 
human creature to attain perfection, yet so wonderfully near did 
this good man approach to consummate rectitude, that unless bene- 
volence may be carried to excess, no other failing was ever known 
to have been discovered in his character. His chaplain, Archdeacon 
Payne, who married one of his daughters, and whom I am old 
enough to remember, makes this observation in the short sketch of 
the bishop's life, which he has prefixed to his edition of The Sancha- 
niatho. This and his other works are in the hands of the learned, 
and cannot need any effort on my part to elucidate what they so 
clearly display, the vast erudition and patient investigation of their 
author. 

The death of this venerable prelate was, like his life, serene and 
undisturbed : at the extended age of eighty-six years and some 
months, as he was sitting in his library, he expired without a 
struggle, for he was found in the attitude of one asleep, with his cap 
fallen over his, eyes, and a book in his hand, in which he had been 
reading. Thus, without the ordinaiy visitations of pain or sick- 
ness, it pleased God to terminate the existence of this exemplary 
man. 

He 



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RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 5 

He possessed his faculties to the last, verifying the only claim 
he was ever heard to make as to mental endowments ; for whilst he 
acknowledged himself to be gifted by nature with good wearing parts, 
he made no pretensions to quick and brilliant talents, and in that 
respect he seems to have estimated himself very truly, as we rarely 
find such meek and modest qualities as he possessed in men of 
warmer imaginations, and a brighter glow of genius with less solidity 
of understanding, and, of course, more liable to the influences or 
their passions. 

Bishop Cumberland was the son of a respectable citizen of 
London, and educated at St. Paul's school, from whence he was 
admitted of Magdalen College in Cambridge, where he pursued 
his studies, and was elected fellow of that society, to which I had 
the honour to present a copy of that portrait from which the print 
hereunto annexed was taken. 

In the oriental languages, in mathematics, and even in anatomy, 
he was deeply learned ; in short, his mind was fitted for elaborate 
and profound researches, as his works more fully testify. It is to be 
lamented that his famous work, de legibus Naturce, was allowed to 
come before the public with so many and such glaring errors of the 
press, which his absence and considerable distance from London 
disabled him from correcting. I had a copy interleaved and cor- 
rected and amended throughout by Doctor Bentley, who, being on 
a visit to my father at his parsonage-house in Northamptonshire, 
undertook that kind office, and completed it most effectually. — 
Tliis book I gave, when last at Cambridge, to the library of Trinity 

Colleg 



6 MEMOIRS OF 

College ; and if, by those means, it shall find a passport to the 
University press, I shall have cause to congratulate myself for hav- 
ing so happily bestowed it. 

Of Doctor Richard Bentley, my maternal grandfather, I shall 
next take leave to speak. Of him I have perfect recollection. His 
person, his dignity, his language and his love fixed my early at- 
tention, and stamped both his image and his words upon my me- 
mory. His literary works are known to all, his private character is 
"still misunderstood by many ; to that I shall confine myself, and, 
putting aside the enthusiasm of a descendant, I can assert, with the 
veracity of a biographer, that he was neither cynical, as some have 
represented him, nor overbearing and fastidious in the degree, as he 
has been described by many. Swift, when he foisted him into his 
vulgar Battle of the Books, neither lowers Bentley 's fame nor elevates 
his own ; and the petulant poet, who thought he had hit his manner, 
when he made him haughtily call to Walker for his hat, gave a copy 
as little like the character of Bentley, as his translation is like the 
original of Homer. That Doctor Walker, vice-master of Trinity- 
College, was the friend of my grandfather, and a frequent guest at 
his table, is true ; but it was not in Doctor Bentley's nature to 
treat him with contempt, nor did his harmless character inspire it. 
As for the hat, I must acknowledge it was of formidable dimensions, 
yet I was accustomed to treat it with great familiarity, and if it had 
ever been further from the hand of its owner than the peg upon 
the back of his great arm-chair, I might have been dispatched to 
fetch it, for he was disabled by the palsy in his latter days ; but 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 7 

the hat never stra3 r ed from its place, and Pope found an office for 
Walker, that I can well believe he was never commissioned to in his 
life. 

I had a sister somewhat elder than myself. Had there been any 
of that sternness in my grandfather, which is so falsely imputed to 
him, it may well be supposed we should have been awed into 
silence in his presence, to which we were admitted every day. 
Nothing can be further from the truth ; he was the unwearied pa- 
tron and promoter of all our childish sports and sallies ; at all times 
ready to detach himself from any topic of conversation to take an 
interest and bear his part in our amusements. The eager curiosity 
natural to our age, and the questions it gave birth to, so teazing to 
many parents, he, on the contrary, attended to and encouraged, as 
the claims of infant reason never to be evaded or abused ; strongly 
recommending, that to all such enquiries answer should be given 
according to the strictest truth, and information dealt to us in the 
clearest terms, as a sacred duty never to be departed from. I have 
broken in upon him many a time in his hours of study, when he 
would put his book aside, ring his hand-bell for his servant, and be 
led to his shelves to take down a picture-book for my amusement. 
I do not say that his good-nature always gained its object, as the 
pictures which his books generally supplied me with were anatomi- 
cal drawings of dissected bodies, very little calculated to communi- 
cate delight ; but he had nothing better to produce ; and surely 
such an effort on his part, however unsuccessful, was no feature of 
;i cynic : a cynic should be made of sterner stuff. I have had from 

him 



8 MEMOIRS OF 

him, at times, whilst standing at his elbow, a complete and enter- 
taining narrative of his school-boy days, with the characters of his 
different masters very humorously displayed, and the punishments 
described, which they at times would wrongfully inflict upon him 
for seeming to be idle and regardless of his task, " When the 
" dunces," he would say, " could not discover that I was pondering 
" it in my mind, and fixing it more firmly in my memory, than if I 
" had been bawling it out amongst the rest of my school-fellows." 

Once, and only once, I recollect his giving me a gentle rebuke 
for making a most outrageous noise in the room over his library 
and disturbing him in his studies ; I had no apprehension of anger 
from him, and confidently answered that I could not help it, as I 
had been at battledore and shuttlecock with Master Gooch, the 
Bishop of Ely's son. " And I have been at this sport with his 
" father," he replied ; " but thine has been the more amusing game ; 
*' so there's no harm done." 

These are puerile anecdotes, but my history itself is only in its 
nonage ; and even these will serve in some degree to establish what 
I affirmed, and present his character in those mild and unimposing 
lights, which may prevail with those who know him only as a critic 
and controversialist — 

As slashing Bentley with his desperate hook, 

to reform and soften their opinions of him. 

He recommended it as a very essential duty in parents to be 
particularly attentive to the first dawnings of reason in their chil- 
dren : 



"N, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 9 

dren ; and his own practice was the best illustration of his doctrine ; 
for he was the most patient hearer and most favorable interpreter of 
first attempts at argument and meaning that I ever knew. When I 
was rallied bj my mother, for roundly asserting that I never slept, I 
remember full well his calling on me to account for it ; and when I 
explained it by saying I never knew myself to be asleep, and 
therefore supposed I never slept at all, he gave me credit for my 
defence, and said to my mother, " Leave your boy in possession of 
" his opinion ; he has as clear a conception of sleep, and at least as 
" comfortable an one, as the philosophers who puzzle their brains 
" about it, and do not rest so well." 

Though Bishop Lowth, in the flippancy of controversy called 
the author of The Philoleatherits Lipsiensis and detector of Phalaris 
aut Caprimulgus aid fossor, his genius has produced those living 
witnesses, that must for ever put that charge to shame and silence. 
Against such idle ill-considered words, now dead as the language 
they were conveyed in, the appeal is near at hand ; it lies no further 
off than to his works, and they are upon every reading-man's shelves ; 
but those, who would have looked into his heart, should have stepped 
into his house, and seen him in his private and domestic hours ; 
therefore it is that I adduce these little anecdotes and trifling inci- 
dents, which describe the man, but leave the author to defend 
himself. 

His ordinary style of conversation was naturally lofty, and his 
frequent use of thou and thee witli his familiars carried witli it a 
kind of dictatorial tone, that savoured more of the closet than the 

c court ; 



10 MEMOIRS OF 

court; this is readily admitted, and this on first approaches 
might mislead a stranger; but the native candour and inherent 
tenderness of his heart could not long be veiled from observation, 
for his feelings and affections were at once too impulsive to be long 
repressed, and he too careless of concealment to attempt at quali- 
fying them. Such was his sensibility towards human sufferings, 
that it became a duty with his family to divert the conversation 
from all topics of that sort ; and if he touched upon them himself 
he was betrayed into agitations, which if the reader ascribes to 
paralytic weakness, he will very greatly mistake a man, who to the 
last hour of his life possessed his faculties firm and in their fullest 
vigour ; I therefore bar all such misinterpretations as may attempt 
to set the mark of infirmity upon those emotions, which had no 
other source and origin but in the natural and pure benevolence of 
his heart. 

He was communicative to all without distinction, that sought 
information, or resorted to him for assistance ; fond of his college 
almost to enthusiam, and ever zealous for the honour of the purple 
gown of Trinity. When he held examinations for fellowships, and 
the modest candidate exhibited marks of agitation and alarm, he 
never failed to interpret candidly of such symptoms ; and on those 
occasions he was never known to press the hesitating and embar- 
rassed examinant, but oftentimes on the contrary would take all 
the pains of expounding on himself, and credit the exonerated can- 
didate for answers and interpretations of his own suggesting. If 
this was not rigid justice, it was, at least in my conception of it, some- 
thing 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. n 

thins better and more amiable; and how liable he was to deviate 
from the strict line of justice, by his partiality to the side of mercy, 
appears from the anecdote of the thief, who robbed him of his 
plate, and was seized and brought before him with the very articles 
upon him : the natural process in this man's case pointed out the 
road to prison ; my grandfather's process was more summary, but 
not quite so legal. While Commissary Greaves, who was then 
present, and of counsel for the college Ex officio, was expatiatino- 
on the crime, and prescribing the measures obviously to be taken 
with the offender, Doctor Bentley interposed, saying, " Why tell 
" the man he is a thief? he knows that well enough, without thy 
" information, Greaves. — Harkye, fellow, thou see'st the trade 
" which thou hast taken up is an unprofitable trade, therefore get 
" thee gone, lay aside an occupation by which thou can'st gain 
" nothing but a halter, and follow that by which thou may'st earn 
" an honest livelihood." Having said this, he ordered him to be 
set at liberty against the remonstrances of the bye-standers, and 
insisting upon it that the fellow was duly penitent for his offence, 
bade him go his way and never steal again. 

I leave it with those, who consider mercy as one of man's best 
attributes, to suggest a plea for the informality of this proceeding, 
and to such I will communicate one other anecdote, which I do not 
deliver upon my own knowledge, though from unexceptionable 
authority, and this is, that when Collins had fallen into decay of 
circumstances, Doctor Bentley, suspecting he had written him out 
of credit by his Philoleuthcrus Lipsiensis, secretly contrived to ad- 

c 2 minister 



12 MEMOIRS OF 

minister to the necessities of his baffled opponent in a manner, that 
did no less credit to his delicacy than to his liberality. 

A morose and over-bearing man will find himself a solitary being 
in creation ; Doctor Bentley on the contrary had many intimates ; 
judicious in forming his friendships, he was faithful in adhering to 
them. With Sir Isaac Newton, Doctor Mead, Doctor Wallis of 
Stamford, Baron Spanheim, the lamented Roger Cotes, and several 
other distinguished and illustrious contemporaries, he lived on terms 
of uninterrupted harmony, and I have good authority for saying, 
that it is to his interest and importunity with Sir Isaac Newton, that 
the inestimable publication of the Prificipia was ever resolved upon 
by that truly great and luminous philosopher. Newton's portrait by 
Sir James Thornhill, and those of Baron Spanheim and my grand- 
father by the same hand, now hanging in the Masters lodge of 
Trinity, were the bequest of Doctor Bentley. I was possessed of 
letters in Sir Isaac's own hand to my grandfather, which together 
with the corrected volume of Bishop Cumberland's Laws of Nature, 
I lately gave to the library of that flourishing and illustrious 
college. 

The irreparable loss of Roger Cotes in early life, of whom Newton 
had pronounced — Now the world will know something, Doctor Bentley 
never mentioned but with the deepest regret ; he had formed the 
highest expectations of new lights and discoveries in philosophy from 
the penetrating force of his extraordinary genius, and on the tablet 
devoted to his memory in the chapel of Trinity College Doctor 

Bentley 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. j 3 

Bentley has recorded his sorrows and those of the whole learned 
world in the following beautiful and pathetic epitaph : 

H. S. E. 

" Rogerus Roberti Alius Cotes, 

" Hujus Collegii S. Trinitatis Socius, 

" Et Astronomiae et experimentalis 

" Philosophise Professor Plumianus ; 

" Qui immatura Morte praereptus, 

" Pauca quidem ingenii Sui 

" Pignora reliquit, 

" Sed egregia, sed admiranda, 

" Ex intimis Matheseos penetralibus, 

" Felici Solertia turn primum eruta ; 

" Post magnum ilium Newtonum 

" Societatis hujus spes altera 

" Et decus gemellum ; 

" Cui ad summam Doctrinae laudem, 

" Omnes morum virtutumque dotes 

" In cumulum accesserunt ; 

" Eo magis spectabiles amabilesque, 

" Quod in formoso corpore 

" Gratiores venirent. 

" Natus Burbagii 

" In agro Leicestriensi. 

" Jill. X. MDCLXXXII. 

" Obiit. Jun. v. mdccxvi." 

His 



14 MEMOIRS OF 

His domestic habits, when I knew him, were still those of 
unabated study : he slept in the room adjoining to his library, and 
was never with his family till the hour of dinner ; at these times he 
seemed to have detached himself most completely from his studies ; 
never appearing thoughtful and abstracted, but social, gay, and 
possessing perfect serenity of mind and equability of temper. He 
never dictated topics of conversation to the company he was with, 
but took them up as they came in his way, and was a patient 
listener to other people's discourse, however trivial or uninteresting 
it might be. When The Spectators were in publication I have heard 
my mother say he took great delight in hearing them read to him, 
and Avas so particularly amused by the character of Sir Roger de 
Coverley, that he took his literary decease most seriously to heart. 
She also told me, that, when in conversation with him on the subject 
of his works, she found occasion to lament that he had bestowed so 
great a portion of his time and talents upon criticism instead of 
employing them upon original composition, he acknowledged the 
justice of her regret with extreme sensibility, and remained for a 
considerable time thoughtful and seemingly embarrassed by the 
nature of her remark; at last recollecting himself he said — " Child, 
" I am sensible I have not always turned my talents to the proper use 
" for which I should presume they were given to me : yet I have 
" done something for the honour of my God and the edification of 
" my felloAV creatures ; but the wit and genius of those old heathens 
" beguiled me, and as I despaired of raising myself up to their 

" standard 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 15 

" standard upon fair ground, I thought the only chance I had of 
" looking over their heads was to get upon their shoulders." 

Of his pecuniary affairs he took no account ; he had no use for 
money, and dismissed it entirely from his thoughts: his establish- 
ment in the mean time was respectable, and his table affluently 
and hospitably served. All these matters were conducted and 
arranged in the best manner possible by one of the best women 
living ; for such, by the testimony of all who knew her, was Mrs. 
Bentle}', daughter of Sir John Bernard of Brampton in Hunting- 
donshire, a family of great opulence and respectability, allied to 
the Crom wells and Saint Johns, and by intermarriages connected 
with other great and noble houses. I have perfect recollection of 
the person of my grandmother, and a full impression of her manners 
and habits, which, though in some degree tinctured with hereditary 
reserve and the primitive cast of character, were entirely free from 
the hypocritical cant and affected sanctity of the Oliverians. Her 
whole life was modelled on the purest principles of piety, benevo- 
lence and christian charity; and in her dying moments, my mother 
being present and voucher of the fact, she breathed out her soul in 
a kind of beatific vision, exclaiming in rapture as she expired— iY 
is all bright, it is all glorious ! 

I was frequently called upon by her to repeat certain scriptural 
texts and passages, which she had taught me, and for which I seldom 
failed to be rewarded, but by which I was also frequently most 
completely puzzled and bewildered; so that I much doubt if t lie 
good effects of this practice upon immature and infantine under- 
standing 



16 MEMOIRS OF 

standings will be found to keep pace with the good intentions of 
those who adopt it. One of these holy apothegms, viz : — The eyes 
of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good, I 
remember to have cost me many a struggle to interpret, and the 
result of my construction was directly opposite to the spirit and 
meaning of the text. I was also occasionally summoned to attend 
upon the readings of long sermons and homilies of Baxter, as I 
believe, and others of his period; neither by these was I edified, 
but, on the contrary, so effectually wearied, that by noises and 
interruptions I seldom failed to render myself obnoxious, and 
obtain my dismission before the reading was over. 

The death of this exemplary lady preceded that of my grand- 
father by a few years only, and by her he had one son, Richard, 
and two daughters, Elizabeth and Joanna. Richard was a man of 
various and considerable accomplishments ; he had a fine genius, 
great wit and a brilliant imagination ; he had also the manners and 
address of a perfect gentleman, but there was a certain eccentricity 
and want of worldly prudence in my uncle's character, that involved 
him in distresses, and reduced him to situations uncongenial with 
his feelings, and unpropitious to the cultivation and encouragement 
of his talents. His connexion with Mr. Horace Walpole, the late 
Lord Orford, had too much of the bitter of dependance in it to 
be gratifying to the taste of a man of his spirit and sensibility ; 
the one could not be abject, and the other, I suspect, was not by 
nature very liberal and large-minded. They carried on, for a long 
time, a sickly kind of friendship, which had its hot fits and its cold ; 

was 






RICHARD CUMBERLAND. i? 

was suspended and renewed, but I believe never totally broken 
and avowedly laid aside. Walpole had by nature a propensity, 
and by constitution a plea, for being captious and querulential, 
for he was a martyr to the gout. He wrote prose and published 
it; he composed verses and circulated them, and was an author, 
who seemed to play at hide-and-seek with the public. There was a 
mysterious air of consequence in his private establishment of a 
domestic printing press, that seemed to augur great things, but per- 
formed little. Walpole was already an author with no great claims 
to excellence, Bentley had those powers in embryo, that would 
have enabled him to excel, but submitted to be the projector of 
Gothic embellishments for Strawberry Hill, and humble designer 
of drawings to ornament a thin folio of a meagre collection of odes 
by Gray, the most costive of poets, edited at the Walpolian press. 
In one of these designs Bentley has personified himself as a monkey, 
sitting under a withered tree with his pallet in his hand, while Gray 
reposes under the shade of a flourishing laurel in all the dignity of 
learned ease. Such a design with figures so contrasted might flatter 
Gray and gratify the trivial taste of Walpole; but in my poor opi- 
nior it is a satire in copper plate, and my uncle has most completely 
libelled both his poet and his patron without intending so to do. 

Let this suffice at present for the son of Doctor Bentley; in 
the course of these memoirs I shall take occasion to recall the 
attention of my readers to what I have further to relate of him. 

Elizabeth Bentley, eldest daughter of her father, first married 
Humphry Ridge Esquire, and after his decease 1 the Reverend 

d Doctor 



18 MEMOIRS OF 

Doctor Favell, fellow of Trinity College, and after his marriage 
with my aunt, Rector of Witton near Huntingdon, in the gift of Sir 
John Bernard of Brampton. She was an honourable and excellent 
lady ; I had cause to love her, and lament her death. She inherited 
the virtues and benignity of her mother, with habits more adapted 
to the fashions of the Avorld. 

Joanna, the younger of Doctor Bentley's daughters, and the 
Phoebe of Byron's pastoral, was my mother. I will not violate the 
allegiance I have vowed to truth in giving any other character of 
her, than what in conscience I regard as just and faithful. She had 
a vivacity of fancy and a strength of intellect, in which few were 
her superiors : she read much, remembered well and discerned 
acutely : I never knew the person, who could better embellish any 
subject she was upon, or render common incidents more entertain- 
ing by the happy art of relating them ; her invention was so 
fertile, her ideas so original and the points of humour so ingeniously 
and unexpectedly taken up in the progress of her narrative, that 
she never failed to accomplish all the purposes, which the gaiety of 
her imagination could lay itself out for : she had a quick intuition 
into characters, and a faculty of marking out the ridiculous, when 
i,t came within her view, which of force I must confess she made 
rather too frequent use of. Her social powers were brilliant, but 
not uniform, for on some occasions she would persist in a deter- 
mined taciturnity to the regret of the company present, and at 
other times would lead off in her best manner, when perhaps none 
were present, who could taste the spirit and amenity of her humour. 

There 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 19 

There hardly passed a day, in which she failed to devote a portion of 
her time to the reading of the Bible ; and her comments and expo- 
sitions might have merited the attention of the wise and learned. 
Though strictly pious, there was no gloom in her religion, but on 
the contrary such was the happy faculty, which she possessed, of 
making every doctrine pleasant, every duty sweet, that what some 
instructors would have represented as a burden and a yoke, she 
contrived to recommend as a recreation and delight. All that son 
can owe to parent, or disciple to his teacher, I owe to her. 

My paternal grandfather Richard, only son of Bishop Cumber- 
land, was rector of Peakirk in the diocese of Peterborough and 
Archdeacon of Northampton. He had two sons and one daughter, 
who was married to Waring Ashby Esquire of Quenby Hall in 
the county of Leicester, and died in child-birth of her only son 
George Ashby Esquire, late of Haselbeach in Northamptonshire. 
Richard, the eldest son of Archdeacon Cumberland, died unmar- 
ried at the age of twenty-nine, and the younger, Denison, so 
named from his mother, was my father. He was educated at 
Westminster school, and from that admitted fellow-commoner of 
Trinity College in Cambridge. He married at the age of twentj r - 
two, and though in possession of an independent fortune was 
readily prevailed upon by his father-in-law Doctor Bentley to 
take the rectory of Stan wick in the county of Northampton, given 
to him by Lord Chancellor King, as soon as he was of age to hold 
it. From this period he fixed his constant residence in that retired 
and tranquil spot, and sedulously devoted himself to the duties of 

d 2 Ills 



20 MEMOIRS OF 

his function. "When I contemplate the character of this amiable 
man, I declare to truth I never yet knew one so happily endowed 
with those engaging qualities, which are formed to attract and fix 
the love and esteem of mankind. It seemed as if the whole spirit 
of his grandfather's benevolence had been transfused into his heart, 
and that he bore as perfect a resemblance of him in goodness, as he 
did in person : in moral purity he was truly a Christian, in gene- 
rosity and honour he was perfectly a gentleman. 

On the nineteenth day of February 1732 I was born in the Mas- 
ter's Lodge of Trinity College, inter silvas Academi, under the roof 
of my grand-father Bentley, in what is called the Judge's Chamber. 
Having therefore prefaced my history with, these few faint sketches 
of the great and good men, whom I have the honour to number 
amongst my ancestors, I must solicit the condescension of my rea- 
ders to a much humbler topic, and proceed to speak professedly 
of myself. 

Here then for awhile I pause for self-examination, and to weigh 
the task I am about to undertake. I look into my heart; I search 
my understanding; I review my life, my labours, the talents I have 
been endowed with, and the uses I have put them to, and it shall 
be my serious study not to be found guilty of any partial estimates, 
any false appretiation of that self, either as author or man, which 
of necessity must be made to fill so large a portion of the following 
pages. When from the date, at which my history now pauses, I 
look forward through a period of more than seventy and two years, 
I discover nothing within my horizon, of which to be vain-glorious ; 

no 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 21 

no sudden heights to turn me giddy, no dazzling gleams of Fortune's 
sunshine to bewilder me; nothing but one long laborious track, not 
often strewed with roses, and thorny, cold and barren towards the 
conclusion of it, where weariness wants repose, and age has need of 
comfort. I see myself unfortunately cast upon a lot in life neither 
congenial with my character, nor friendly to my peace ; combating 
with dependence, disappointment and disgusts of various sorts, 
transplanted from a college, within whose walls I had devoted my- 
self to studies, which I pursued with ardent passion and a rising 
reputation, and what to obtain ? What, but the experience of 
difficulties, and the credit of overcoming them ; the useful chastise- 
ment, which unkindness has inflicted, and the conscious satisfac- 
tion of not having merited, nor in any instance of my life revenged 
it? 

If I do not know myself I am not fit to be my own biographer ; 
and if I do know myself I am sure I never took delight in egotisms, 
and now behold ! I am self-devoted to deal in little else. Be it so ! 
I will abide the consequences ; I will not tell untruths to set nryself 
out for better than 1 have been, but as I have not been overpaid by 
my contemporaries, I will not scruple to exact what is due to me 
from posterity. — Ipse de me scribam. (Cic.) 

I have said that I was born on the 19th of February 17S2 ; I 
was not the eldest child, though the only son, of my mother; my 
sister Joanna was more than two years older than me, and more 
than twice two years before me in apprehension, for whilst she pro- 
fited very rapidly by her mother's teaching, I by no means trode in 

her 



22 MEMOIRS OF 

her steps, but on the contrary after a few unpromising efforts 
peremptorily gave up the cause, and persisted in a stubborn repug- 
nance to all instruction. My mother's good sense and my grand- 
father's good advice concurred in the measures to be taken with me 
in this state of mutiny against all the powers of the alphabet ; my 
book was put before me, my lesson pointed out, and though I never 
articulated a single word, I conned it over in silence to myself. I 
have traces of my sensations at this period still in my mind, and 
perfectly recollect the revolt I received from reading of the Heathen 
Idols, described in the 115th psalm as having eyes and not seeing, 
ears and not hearing, with other contrarieties, which between posi- 
tive and negative so completely overset my small stock of ideas, that 
I obstinately stood fast upon the halt, dumb and insensible to 
instruction as the images in question. Of this circumstance, exactly 
as I relate it, with those sensations, which it impressed upon my 
infantine mind, I now retain, as I have already said, distinct recol- 
lection. 

If there is any moral in this small incident, which can impart a 
cautionary hint to the teachers of children, my readers will forgive 
me for treating them with a story of the nursery. I have only to 
add, that when I at length took to my business, I have my mother's 
testimony for saying that I repaid her patience. 

My family divided their time between Cambridge and Stanwick 
so long as my grandfather lived, and when I was turned of six years 
I was sent to the school at Bury Saint Edmund's, then under the 
mastership of the Reverend Arthur Kinsman, who formed his scho- 
lars 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 23 

lars upon the system of Westminster, and was a Trinity College 
man, much esteemed by my grandfather. This school, when I 
came to it, was in high reputation, and numbered a hundred and 
fifty boys. Kinsman was an excellent master, a very sufficient scho- 
lar, and had all the professional requisites of voice, air and aspect, 
that marked him out at first sight as a personage decidedly made on 
purpose — habere imperium in pueros. In his hands I can truly wit- 
ness the reins of empire never slackened, but we did not murmur 
against his authority, for with all his warmth of temper he was 
kind, cordial, open-hearted and an impartial administrator of 
punishments and praises, as they were respectively deserved. His 
name was high in the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, and the chief 
families in those parts were present with him in the persons of their 
representatives, and some yet living can bear witness to the vigour 
of his arm. He was fiery zealous for the honour of his school, which 
by the terms of its establishment was subject to the visitation of those, 
who were in the government of it, and I remember upon a certain 
occasion, when these gentlemen entered the school-room, in the 
execution of their office, (I being then in the rostrum in the act -of 
construing Juvenal) he ordered me to proceed without noticing their 
appearance, and something having passed to give him offence 
against one of their number in particular, taking up the passage 
then under immediate recitation, he echoed forth in a loud and 
pointed tone of voice — 

Nos, nostraque lividus odit. 

It 



24 MEMOIRS OF 

It must be confessed that my good old master had a vaunting 
kind of style in setting forth his school, and once in conversation 
with my grandfather in Trinity Lodge, he was so unaccountably 
misled by the spirit of false prophecy, as to venture to say in a 
raillying kind of way — " Master, I will make your grandson as good 
" a scholar as yourself." — To this Doctor Bentley in the like vein 
of raillery replied — " Pshaw, Arthur, how can that be, when I have 
" forgot more than thou ever knew'st ?" Certain it is that my inaus- 
picious beginnings augured very ill for the bold prediction, thus 
improvidently hazarded ; for so supremely idle was I, and so far from 
being animated by the charms of the Latin grammar, that the labour 
of instruction was but labour lost, and it seemed a chance if I was 
destined to arrive at any other acquirement but the art of sinking, 
in which I regularly proceeded till I found my proper station at the 
very bottom of my class, which, as far as idleness could be my 
security, I was likely to take lasting possession of. 

I am persuaded however that the tranquillity of my ignorance 
would have suffered no interruption from the remonstrances of the 
worthy usher of the under-school, who. sate in a plaid night gOAvn 
and let things take their course, had not the penetrating eye of old 
Kinsman discovered the grandson of his friend far in the rear of 
the line of honour, and in a fair train to give the flattest contradic- 
tion to his prophecy. Whereupon one day, which by me can never 
be forgotten, calling me up to him in his chair at the head of the 
school, he began with much solemnity and in aloud voice to lecture 
me very sharply, whilst all eyes were upon me, all ears open, and a 

dead 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 25 

dead silence, horrible to my feelings, did not leave a hope that a 
single word had escaped the notice of my school-fellows. I well 
remember his demanding of me what report I could expect him to 
make of me to my grandfather Bentley. I shuddered at the name, 
even at that early age so loved and so revered : I made no defence ; 
I had none to make, and he went thundering on, farther perhaps 
than he need to have gone, had he given less scope to his zeal, and 
trusted more to his intuition, for the keenness of his reproof had 
sunk into my heart ; I was covered with shame and confusion ; I 
retired abashed to my seat, which was the lowest in my class, and 
that class the lowest save one in the under-school : I hid my face 
between my hands, resting my head upon the desk before me, and 
gave myself up to tears and contrition : When I raised my eyes and 
looked about me, I thought I discovered contempt in the coun- 
tenances of the boys. At that moment the spirit of emulation, 
which had not yet awaked in my heart, was thoroughly roused ; 
but whilst I was thus resolving on a reform I fell ill, whether from 
agitation of mind, or from cause more natural I know not : I was 
however laid up in a sick bed for a considerable time, and in that 
piteous situation visited by my mother, who came from Cambridge 
on the alarm, and under her tender care I at length regained both 
my spirits and my health. 

My mother now returned to Cambridge and I was taken into 
Kinsman's own house as a boarder, where being associated with 
boys of a better description, and more immediately under the eye 
of my most timely admonishcr, I took all the pains that my years 

e would 



26 MEMOIRS OF 

would admit of to deserve his better opinion and regain my lost 
ground. My diligence was soon followed by success, and success 
encouraged me to fresh exertions. 

I presume the teachers of grammar do not expect boys of a very 
early age to understand it as a body of rules, but merely as an ex- 
ercise of memory ; yet it is well to imprint it on their memories, 
that they may more readily apply to it as they advance in their 
acquaintance with the language. I had naturally a good memory, 
and practice added such a facility of getting by heart, that in my 
repetitions, when we challenged for places, I entered the lists with 
all possible advantages, and soon found myself able to break a lance 
with the very best of my competitors. The good man in the plaid 
gown now began to regard me with less than his usual indifference, 
and my early star was evidently in the ascendant. Such were to me 
the happy consequences of my worthy master's seasonable admoni- 
tion. 

After the decease of Mrs. Bentley, my mother, whose devotion to 
her father was returned by the warmest affection on his part, passed 
much of her time, as my father did of his, at Cambridge ; there I 
also passed my holidays, and the undescribable gratification those 
delightful seasons gave me, hath left traces of the times long past 
and the persons now dead, that can only be effaced by death, and 
of their surviving even that I should be loth to lose the hope. I 
was become capable of understanding my grandfather to be the 
great man he realty was, and began to listen to him with attention, 
and treasure up his sayings in my mind. I was admitted to dine at 

his 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 2? 

his table, had my seat next to his chair, served him in many little 
offices and went upon his errands with a promptitude and alacrity, 
that shewed what pride I took in such commissions, and tempted 
his good nature to invent occasions for employing me. 

One day I full well remember my old master Kinsman walked 
into the room, and was welcomed by my grandfather with the cor- 
diality natural to him. In the mean time my heart fluttered with 
alarm and dread of that report, which he had once threatened to 
prefer against me: nothing could be further from his generous 
thoughts, and as soon as ever he was at leisure to notice such an 
insignificant little being, it was with the affection and caresses of a 
father ; when I looked in his face there was no longer any feature 
of the schoolmaster in it, the terrors of the ferula and the rod were 
vanished out of sight, and that upright strutting little person, 
which in authority was so awful, had now relaxed from its rigidity, 
and no longer strove to swell itself into importance. Arthur not- 
withstanding was a great man on his own ground, and though he 
venerated the master of Trinity College, he did not renounce a 
proper self esteem for the master of Bury School, and the dignity 
appertaining to that office, which he filled, and to which Bentley 
himself had once stooped for instruction. He was a gay social 
fellow, who loved his friend and had no antipathy to his bottle ; he 
had then a kind of dashing discourse, savouring somewhat of the 
shop, which trifles did not check and contradiction could not daunt. 
He had at this very time been recreating his spirit with the company 
in the combination room, and was fairly primed with priestly port. 

e 2 My 



28 



MEMOIRS OF 










My grandfather I dare say discovered nothing of this, and Walker, 
who accompanied Kinsman to the lodge, was exactly in that state 
when silence is the best resort : Arthur in the mean time, whose 
tongue conviviality had by no means tied up, began to open his 
school books upon Bentley, and had drawn him into Homer ; 
Greek now rolled in torrents from the lips of Bentley, and the most 
learned of moderns chanted forth the inspired rhapsodies of the most 
illustrious of antients in a strain delectable indeed to the ear, but not 
very edifying to poor little me and the ladies ; nay, I should even 
doubt if the master of Bury School understood all that he heard, but 
that the worthy vice master of Trinity was innocent of all appre- 
hension, and clear of the plot, if treason was wrapped up in it, I 
can upon my knowledge of him confidently vouch. This however 
I remember, and my mother has frequently in time past refreshed 
my recollection of it, that Joshua Barnes in the course of this con- 
versation being quoted by Kinsman as a man understanding Greek 
and speaking it almost like his mother tongue — " Yes," replied 
Bentley, " I do believe that Barnes had as much Greek, and under- 
" stood it about as well, as an Athenian blacksmith/' Of Pope's 
Homer he said that he had read it ; it was an elegant poem, but no 
translation. Of the learned Warburton, then in the outset of his 
fame, he remarked that there seemed to be in him a voracious 
appetite for knowledge ; he doubted if there was a good digestion. 
This is an anecdote I refer to those, who are competent to make or 
reject the application. 

At no great distance of time from this period, which I have been 

now 



To front Pqrr 2A . 




I'./'litirt xetily. 







,/:vi 



///// /, 



/).:/). 



thhl'tsh. -I 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 29 

now recording, Doctor Bentley died and was buried in Trinity 
College chapel by the side of the altar table, where a square black 
stone records his name, and nothing more. It remains with the 
munificence of that rich society to award him other monumental 
honors, whenever they may think it right to grace his memory with 
a tablet. He was seized with a complaint, that in his opinion 
seemed to indicate a necessity of immediate bleeding ; Doctor 
Heberden, then a young physician practising in Cambridge, was of 
a contrary opinion, and the patient acquiesced. His friend Doctor 
Wallis, in whose skilful practice and experience he so justly placed 
his confidence, was unfortunately absent from Stamford, and never 
came upon the summons for any purpose but to share in the sorrows 
of his family, and lament the non-compliance with the process he 
had recommended, which, according to his judgment of the case, 
was the very measure he should himself have taken. 

I believe I felt as much affliction as my age was capable of when 
my master Kinsman imparted the intelligence of my grandfather's 
death to me, taking me into his private chamber, and lamenting 
the event with great agitation. Whilst I gave vent to my tears, he 
pressed me tenderly in his arms, and encouraging me to persist 
in my diligence, assured me of his favour and protection. He 
kept me out of school for a few days, gave me private instruction, 
and then sent me forth ardently resolved to acquit myself to his 
satisfaction. From this time I may truly sa} r my task was my 
delight. I rose rapidly to the head of my class, and in the 
whole course of my progress through the upper school never once 

lost 



30 MEMOIRS OF 

lost my place of head boy, though daily challenged by those, who 
were as anxious to dislodge me from my post as I was to maintain 
myself in it. As I have the honour to name both Bishop Warren 
and his brother Richard the physician as two amongst the most 
formidable of my form-fellows, I may venture to say that school 
boy must have been more than commonly alert, whom they could 
not overtake and depose ; but the exertion of my competitors was 
such a spur to my industry and ambition, that my mind was perpe- 
tually in its business. Had I in any careless moment suffered a 
discomfiture, my mortification would have been most poignant, but 
the dread I had of that event caused me always to be prepared 
against it, and I held possession of my post under a suspended 
sword, that hourly menaced me without ever dropping. 

Whilst I dwell on the detail of anecdotes like the above I must 
refer myself to the candour of the reader, but though it behoves 
me to study brevity, where I cannot furnish amusement, it would 
be totally inconsistent with the plan I have laid down to pass over 
in total silence this period of my life ; an sera in the history of every 
man's mind and character, only to be omitted when it is not to be 
obtained ; a plea, which those, who are their own biographers, are 
not privileged to make. 

My good old master was a hospitable man, and every Wednesday 
held a kind of public day, to which his friends and neighbours used 
to resort. On that day he drank his bottle of port and played his 
garrve of back-gammon, after which he came in gaiety of heart to 
evening-school for one hour only. It was a gala day for all the boys, 

and 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 

and for me in particular, as I was sure on all those occasions to be 
ordered up to the rostrum to recite and expound Juvenal, and he 
seldom failed to keep me so employed through the whole time. He 
had a great partiality for that nervous author, and I remember his 
reciting the following passage in a kind of rapturous enthusiasm in 
the ears of all the school, crying out that he defied the writers' of the 

Augustan age to produce one equal to it. The classical reader 

very probably will not second his opinion, but I dare say he will not 
fail to anticipate the passage, which is as follows — 

Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem 
Integer ; ambiguoe siquando citabere causa, 
Incertaque rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis 
Falsus, et admoto dictet perjuria Tauro, 
Summum crede nefas animam preferre padori, 
Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. 

This is unquestionably a fine passage and a sublime moral, but 
I rather suspect there is a quaintness, and something of what the 
Italians call concetto, in the concluding line, that is not quite in the 
style and cast of the purer age. 

The tasks of a school-boy are of three descriptions ; he is to give 
the construction of his author, to study his repetitions, and to 
write what are called his exercises, whether in verse or prose. In 
the former two, the tasks of construing and saying by heart, it was 
the usage of our school to challenge for places: In this province \n\ 

good 



32 MEMOIRS OF 

good fortune was unclouded ; in my exercises I did not succeed so 
well, for by aiming at something like fancy and invention I was too 
frequently betrayed into grammatical errors, whilst my rivals pre- 
sented exercises with fewer faults, and, by attempting scarcely any 
thing, hazarded little. These premature and imperfect sallies, which 
I gave way to, did me no credit with my master, and once in parti- 
cular upon my giving in a copy of Latin verses, unpardonably 
incorrect, though not entirely void of imagination, he commented 
upon my blunders with great severity, and in the hearing of my 
form-fellows threatened to degrade me from my station at their 
head. I had earned that station by hard labour and unceasing 
assiduity ; I had maintained it against their united efforts for some 
years, and the dread of being at once deprived of what they had not 
been able to take from me, had such an effect on my sensibility, 
that I never perfectly recovered it, and probably should at no time 
after have gained any credit in that branch of my school business, 
had I not been transplanted to Westminster. 

The exercise, for which I was reprehended, I well remember 
was a copy of verses upon Phalaris's bull, which bull I confess 
led me into some blunders, that my master might have observed 
upon with more temper. I stood in need of instruction, and he 
inflicted discouragement. 

Though I love the memory of my good old master, and am under 
infinite obligations to his care and kindness, yet having severely 
experienced how poignant are the inflictions of discouragement to 
the feelings, and how repulsive to the efforts of the unformed embryo 

genius, 






RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 33 

genius, I cannot state this circumstance in any better light than as 
an oversight in point of education, which, though well-intentioned 
on his part, could only operate to destroy what it was his object to 
improve. 

When the talents of a young and rising author shall be found to 
profit by the denunciations and brow-beatings of his hypercritical 
contemporaries, then, and not till then, it will be right to train up 
our children according to this system, and discouragement be the 
best model for education, which the conductors of it can adopt. 

As our master had lately discontinued his custom of letting his 
boys act a play of Terence before the Christmas holidays, after the 
example of Westminster, some of us undertook without his leave, 
though probably not without his knowledge and connivance, to get 
up the tragedy of Cato at one of the boarding-houses, and invite 
the gentry of the town to be present at our childish exhibition. 
We escaped from school one evening, and climbed the wall that 
intercepted us from the scene of action, to prepare ourselves for 
this goodly show. A full bottomed periwig for Cato, and female 
attire for Portia and Marcia borrowed from the maids of the lodging 
house were the chief articles of our scanty wardrobe, and of a piece 
with the wretchedness of our property was the wretchedness of our 
performance. Our audience however, which was not very select, 
endured us and we slept upon our laurels, till the next morning 
being made to turn out for the amusement of the whole school, and 
go through a scene or two of our evening's entertainment, we 
acquitted ourselves so little to the satisfaction of Mr. Kinsman, that 

f after 



34 MEMOIRS OF 

after bestowing some hearty buffets upon the virtuous Marcia, who 
had towered above her sex in the person of a most ill-favoured wry- 
necked boy, the rest of our dramatis personce were sentenced to the 
fine of an imposition, and dismissed. The part of Juba had been 
my cast, and the tenth satire of Juvenal was my portion of the fine 
inflicted. 

It was about this time I made my first attempt in English verse, 
and took for my subject an excursion I had made with my family 
in the summer holidays to visit a relation in Hampshire, which 
engaged me in a description of the docks at Portsmouth, and of 
the races at Winchester, where I had been present. I believe my 
poem was not short of a hundred lines, and was written at such 
times as I could snatch a few minutes from my business or amuse- 
ments. I did not like to risk the .consequences of confiding it 
to my school fellows, but kept it closely secret till the next break- 
ing up, when I exhibited it to my father, who received it after his 
gracious manner with unreserved commendation, and persisted in 
reciting it to his intimates, when I had gained experience enough 
to wish he had consigned it to oblivion. 

Though I have no copy of this childish performance, I bear in 
my remembrance two introductory couplets, which were the first 
English lines I ever wrote, and are as follows — 

Since every scribbler claims his share of fame, 
And every Cibber boasts a Dry den's name, 
Permit an infant Muse her chance to try ; 
All have a right to that, and why not If 

One 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 35 

One other lame and miserable couplet just now occurs to me, 
as beino- quoted frequently upon me by my mother as an instance 
in the art of sinking, and it is clear I had stumbled upon it in my 
description of the dock yard, viz.— 

" Here they weave cables, there they main masts form, 
" Here they forge anchors — useful in a storm." 

My good father however was not to be put by from his defences 
by trifles, and stoutly stood by my anchors, contending that as 
they were unquestionably useful in a storm, I had said no more of 
them than was true, and why should I be ashamed of having 
spoken the truth ? Yet ashamed I was some short time after, not 
indeed for having violated the truth, but for suppressing it, and 
my dilemma was occasioned by the following circumstance. I 
had picked up an epigram amongst my school fellows, which struck 
my fancy, and without naming the author, (for I knew him not,) 
[ repeated it to my father — it was this — 

Poets of old did Argus prize 
Because he had an hundred eyes, 
But sure more praise to him is due, 
Who looks an hundred ways with two. 

In repeating this epigram, which perhaps the reader can find 
an author for, I did not give it out as my own, but it was so 

f 2 understood 



36 MEMOIRS OF 

understood by my father, and he circulated it as mine, and took 
pleasure in repeating it as such amongst his friends and intimates. 
In this state of the mistake, when his credit had been affixed to it, 
I had not courage to disavow it, and the time being once gone by 
for saving my honor, I suffered him to persist in his error under the 
continual terror of detection. The dread of thus forfeiting his 
good opinion hung upon my spirits for a length of time ; it passed 
however undiscovered to the end of his life, and I now implore 
pardon of his memory for the only fallacy I ever put upon him to 
the conviction of my conscience. 

After the death of Doctor Bentley my family resided in the 
parsonage house of Stanwick near Higham Ferrers in Northamp- 
tonshire ; it had been newly built from the ground by my father's 
predecessor Doctor Needham, from a plan of Mr. Burroughs of 
Caius College, an architect of no small reputation : it was a hand- 
some square of four equal fronts, built of stone, containing four 
rooms on a floor with a gallery running through the center ; it was 
seated on the declivity of a gentle hill with the village to the south 
amongst trees and pasture grounds in view, and a small stream in 
the valley between : on the north, west and south were gardens, 
on the east the church at some little distance, and in the interme- 
diate space an excellent range of stables and coach houses, built by 
my father and forming one side of a square court laid out for the 
approach of carriages to the house. The spire of Stanwick Church 
is esteemed one of the jjnost beautiful models in that style of 
architecture in tUe kingdom; my father added a very handsome 

clock 



x 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 37 

clock and ornamented the chancel with a railing, screen and enta- 
blature upon three-quarter columns with a singing gallery at the 
west end, and spared no expence to keep his church not only in 
that neatness and decorum, which befits the house of prayer, but 
also in a perfect state of good and permanent repair. 

Here in the hearts of his parishioners, and the esteem of his 
neighbours, my good father lived tranquil and unambitious, never 
soliciting other preferment than this for the space of thirty years, 
holding only a small prebend in the church of Lincoln, given to 
him by his uncle Bishop Reynolds. He was in the commission of 
the peace, and a very active magistrate in the reconcilement of 
parties rather than in the commitment of persons : in those quiet 
parts offences were in general trivial, and the differences merely 
such as an attorney could contrive to hook a suit upon, so that 
with a very little legal knowledge, and a very hospitable generous 
disposition, my father rarely failed to put contentious spirits to 
peace by reference to the kitchen and the cellar. In the mean 
time his popularity rose in proportion as his beer-barrels sunk, and 
as often as he made peace he made friends, till I may say without 
exaggeration he had all men's good word in his favour and their 
services at his command. In the mean time such Avas the orderly 
behaviour and good discipline of his own immediate flock, that I have 
frequently heard him say he never once had occasion during his long 
residence amongst them to issue his warrant within the precincts of 
his own happy village, which being seated between the more 
populous and less correct parishes of Raunds and Higham-Ferrers, 

he 



38 MEMOIRS OF 

he used appositely to call Little Zoar, but made no further allusion* 
to the evil neighbourhood of Zoar. 

In this peaceful spot with parents so affectionate I was the 
happiest of beings in my breakings-up from school. Those delightful 
scenes are fresh in my remembrance, and when I have occasionally 
revisited them, since the decease of objects ever so dear to me, the 
sensations they have excited are not for me to describe. I had 
inherited an excellent constitution, and, though not robust in make, 
was more than commonly adroit in my athletic exercises. In 
swiftness of foot for a short distance no boy in Bury School could 
match me, and, when at Cambridge, I gave a general challenge to 
the Collegians, which was decided in Trinity Walks in my favour. 

Those field sports, of which the young and active are naturally 
so fond, I enjoyed by my father's favour in perfection, and in my 
winter holidays constantly went out with him upon his hunting 
days, and was always admirably mounted. He was light and elegant 
in his person, and had in his early youth kept horses and rode 
matches at Newmarket after the example of his elder brother ; but 
though his profession had now put a stop to those levities, he shared 
in a pack of harriers with a neighbouring gentleman, and was a bold 
and excellent rider. In my first attendances upon him to the field, 
the joys of hunting scarcely compensated for the terrors I sometimes 
felt in following him against my will upon a racing galloway, which 
he had purchased of old Panton, and whose attachment to her 
leader was such as left me no option as to the pace I would wish to 
go, or the leaps I would avoid to take. At length when age added 

strength 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 39 

strength and practice gave address, falls became familiar to me, 
and I left both fear and prudence behind me in the pleasures of the 
chace. 

It was in these intervals from school that my mother began to 
form both my taste and my car for poetry, by employing me every 
evening to read to her, of which art she was a very able mistress. 
Our readings were with very few exceptions confined to the chosen 
plays of Shakespear, whom she both admired and understood in the 
true spirit and sense of the author. Under her instruction I became 
passionately fond of these our evening entertainments ; in the mean 
time she was attentive to model my recitation, and correct my man- 
ner with exact precision. Her comments and illustrations were such 
aids and instructions to a pupil in poetry as few could have given. 
What I could not else have understood she could aptly explain, 
and what I ought to admire and feel nobody could more happily 
select and recommend. I well remember the care she took to mark 
out for my observation the peculiar excellence of that unrivalled 
poet in the consistency and preservation of his characters, and 
wherever instances occured amongst the starts and sallies of his 
unfettered fancy of the extravagant and false sublime, her discern- 
ment oftentimes prevented me from being so dazzled by the glitter of 
the period as to misapply my admiration, and betray my want of 
taste. With all her father's critical acumen she could trace, and 
teach me to unravel, all the meanders of his metaphor, and point 
out where it illuminated, or where it only loaded and obscured the 
meaning; these were happy hours and interesting lectures to me, 

whilst 



40 MEMOIRS OF 

whilst my beloved father, ever placid and complacent, sate beside 
us, and took part in our amusement : his voice was never heard but 
in the tone of approbation ; his countenance never marked but 
with the natural traces of his indelible and hereditary benevolence. 

The effect of these readings was exactly that, which was natu- 
rally to be foreseen. I began to try my strength in several slight 
attempts towards the drama, and as Shakespear was most upon my 
tongue and nearest to my heart, I fitted and compiled a kind of 
cento, which I intitled Shakespear in the Shades, and formed into 
one act, selecting the characters of Hamlet and Ophelia, Romeo 
and Juliet, Lear and Cordelia, as the persons of my drama, and 
giving to Shakespear, who is present throughout the piece, Ariel 
as an attendant spirit, and taking for the motto to my title-page — 

Ast alii sex, 
Et plures, uno conclamant ore — 

I should premise that I was now at the head of Bury School, 
though only in my twelfth year, and not very slightly grounded in 
the Greek and Latin classics, there taught. 

The scene is laid in Elysium, where the poet is discovered and 
opens the drama with the following address— 

" Most fair and equal hearers, know, that whilst this soul inha- 
" bited its fleshly tabernacle, I was called Shakespear ; a greater 
" name and more exalted honours have dignified its dissolution. 
" Blest with a liberal portion of the divine spirit, as a tribute due 

" to 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 41 

" to the bounty of the Gods, I left behind me an immortal monu- 
" ment of my fame. Think not that I boast ; the actions of departed 
" beings may not be censured by any mortal wit, nor are account- 
" able to any earthly tribunal. Let it suffice that in the grave — 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coyle — 

" All envy and detraction, all pride and vain-glory are no more ; 
" still a grateful remembrance of humanity and a tender regard for 
" our posterity on earth follow us to this happy seat ; and it is in 
" this regard I deign once more to salute you with my favoured 
" presence, and am content to be again an actor for your sakes. I 
" have been attentive to your sufferings at my mournful scenes ; 
" guardian of that virtue, which I left in distress, I come now, the 
" instrument of Providence, to compose your sorrows, and restore 
" to it the proportioned reward. Those bleeding characters, those 
" martyred worthies, whom I have sent untimely to the shades, 
" shall now at length and in your sight be crowned with their 
" beloved retribution, and the justice, which as their poet I with- 
" held from them, as the arbiter and disposer of their fate, I will 
" award to them ; but for the villain and the adulterer — 

The perjured and the simular man of virtue — 

" the proud, the ambitious, and the murderer I shall — 

-Leave such to heaven, 
And to those thorns, that in their bosoms lodge 
To prick and sting them. — 

g " But 



42 MEMOIRS OF 

" But soft ! I see one coming, that often hath beguiled you of your 

" tears — the fair Ophelia — " 

The several parties now make their respective appeals, and 

Shakespear finally summons them all before him by his agent Ariel, 

for whose introduction he prepares the audience by the following 

soliloquy — 

" Now comes the period of my high commission : 

" All have been heard, and all shall be restord, 

" All errors blotted out and all obstructions, 

" Mortality entails, shall be remov'd, 

"And from the mental eye the film withdrawn, 

" Which in its corporal union had obscur'd 

" And clouded the pure virtue of its sight. 

" But to these purposes I must employ 

" My ready spirit Ariel, some time minister 

" To Prospero, and the obsequious slave 

*' Of his enchantments, from whose place preferred 

" He here attends to do me services, 

" And qualify these beings for Elysium — 

" Hoa ! Ariel, approach, my dainty spirit ! 

(Ariel enters.) 
All hail, great master, grave Sir, hail ! I come 
To answer thy best pleasure ; be it to fly, 
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride 
On the curled clouds — to thy strong bidding task 
*■ Ariel and all his qualities — 

Shakespear. 






RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 43 

Shakespear. 

" Know then, spirit, 
" Into this grove six shades consign'd to bliss 
" I've separately remov'd, of each sex three ; 
" Unheard of one another and unseen 
" There they abide, yet each to each endear'd 
" By ties of strong affection : not the same 
" Their several objects, though the effects alike, 
" But husband, father, lover make the change. 
" Now though the body's perish'd, yet are they 
" Fresh from their sins and bleeding with their wrongs ; 
" Therefore all sense of injury remove, 
" Heal up their wounded faculties anew, 
" And pluck affliction's arrow from their hearts ; 
" Refine their passions, for gross sensual love 
" Let it become a pure and faultless friendship, 
" Raise and confirm their joys, let them exchange 
" Their fleeting pleasures for immortal peace : 
" This done, with speed conduct them each to other 
" So chang'd, and set the happy choir before me." 

I have the whole of this puerile production, written in a school- 
boy's hand, which by some chance has escaped the general wreck, 
in which I have lost some records, that I should now be glad to 
resort to. I am not quite sure that I act fairly by my readers when 

g 2 I give 



44 MEMOIRS OF 

I give any part of it a place in these memoirs, yet as an instance 
of the impression, which my mother's lectures had made upon my 
youthful fancy, and perhaps as a sample of composition indicative 
of more thought and contrivance, than are commonly to be found 
in boys at so very early an age, I shall proceed to transcribe the 
concluding part of the scene, in which Romeo has his audience, and 
can truly affirm that the copy is faithful without the alteration or 
addition of a single word — 

Romeo. 

" — Oh thou, the great disposer of my fate, 
" Judge of my actions, patron of my cause, 
" Tear not asunder such united hearts, 
" But give me up to love and to my Juliet. 

Shakespear. 

" Unthinking youth, thou dost forget thyself ; 

" Rash inconsiderate boy, must I again 

" Remind thee of thy fate ? What ! know'st thou not 

" The man, whose desperate hand foredoes himself, 

" Is doom'd to wander on the Stygian shore 

" A restless shade, forlorn and comfortless, 

" For a whole age ? Nor shall he hope to sooth 

" The callous ear of Charon, till he win 

" His passion by repentance and submission 

" At this my fixt tribunal, else be sure 

"The 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 45 

« The wretch shall hourly pace the lazy wharf 
" To view the beating of the Stygian wave, 
" And waste his irksome leisure. 

Romeo. 
Gracious powers, 

Is this my doom, my torment — ? Heaven is here 
Where Juliet lives, and each unworthy thing 
Lives here in heaven and may look on her, 
But Romeo may not : more validity, 
More honourable state, more worship lives 
In carrion flies than Romeo; they may seize 
On the white wonder of my love's dear hand, 
And steal immortal blessings from her lips, 
But Romeo may not ; " He is doom'd to bear 
" An age's pain and sigh in banishment, 
" To drag a restless being on the shore 
" Of gloomy Styx, and weep into the flood, 
«' Till, with his tears made full, the briny stream" 
Shall kiss the most exalted shores of all. 

Shakespear. 
" Now then dost thou repent thy follies past ? 

Romeo. 

" Oh, ask me if I feel my torments present, 

" Then 



46 MEMOIRS OF 

" Then judge if I repent my follies past. 

" Had I but powers to tell you what I feel, 

" A tongue to speak my heart's unfeigned contrition, 

" Then might I lay the bleeding part before you ; 

" But 'twill not be — something I yet would say 

"■ To extenuate my crime ; I fain would plead 

" The merit of my love — but I have done — 

" However hard my sentence, I submit. 

" My faithless tongue turns traitor to my heart, 

" And will not utter what it fondly prompts ; 

" A rising gust of passion drowns my voice, 

" And I'm most dumb when I've most need to sue. 

( Kneels.) 

Shakespear. 

" Arise, young Sir ! before my mercy-seat 

" None kneel in vain ; repentance never lost 

" The cause she pleaded. Mercy is the proof, 

" The test that marks a character divine ; 

" Were ye like merciful to one another, 

" The earth would be a heaven and men the gods. 

" Withdraw awhile ; I see thy heart is full ; 

" Grief at a crime committed merits more 

" Than exultation for a duty done. 

(Romeo withdraws.) 

Shakespear 






RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 47 

Shakespear remains and speaks — 

" What rage is this, O man, that thou should'st dare 

" To turn unnatural butcher on thyself, 

" And thy presumptuous violent hand uplift 

" Against that fabrick which the Gods have rais'd ? 

" Insolent wretch, did that presumptuous hand 

" Temper thy wond'rous frame ? Did that bold spirit 

" Inspire the quickened clay with living breath ? 

" Do not deceive thyself. Have the kind Gods 

" Lent their own goodly image to thy use 

" For thee to break at pleasure ? — 

" What are thy merits ? Where is thy dominion ? 

" If thou aspir'st to rule, rule thy desires. 

" Thou poorly turn'st upon thy helpless body, 

" And hast no heart to check thy growing sins : 

" Thou gain'st a mighty victory o'er thy life, 

" But art enslaved to thy basest passions, 

" And bowcst to the anarchy within thee. 

" Oh ! have a care 

" Lest at thy great account thou should'st be found 

" A thriftless steward of thy master's substance. 

" 'Tis his to take away, or sink at will, 

" Thou but the tenant to a greater lord, 

" Nor maker, nor the monarch of thyself." 

I selected 



48 MEMOIRS OF 

I select these extracts, because what is within hooks is of my 
own composing, whereas in the preceding scenes, where the cha- 
racters make their appeal, I perceive I had in general contrived to 
let them speak the language, which their own poet had given to 
them. I presume to add that the passages I have extracted from 
their parts, as they stand in the originals of their great author, are 
ingeniously enough chosen and appositely introduced ; I likewise 
take the liberty to observe, that where I have in those scenes 
above alluded to connected the extracts with my own dialogue, 
considering it as the work of so mere a novice, it is not contemp- 
tibly executed. As I have solemnly disavowed all deception or 
finesse in the whole conduct of these memoirs, so in this instance 
I have not sought to excite surprise by making my years fewer, or 
my verses better, than they strictly and truly were, having faithfully 
attested the one, and correctly transcribed the other. 

My worthy old master at Bury, now in the decline of life, 
intimated his purpose of retiring, and my father took the oppor- 
tunity of transplanting me to Westminster, where he admitted me 
under Doctor Nichols, and lodged me in the boarding house, then 
kept by Ludford, where he himself had been placed. He took me 
in his hand to the master, who seemed a good deal surprised to 
hear that I had passed through Bury School at the age of twelve, 
and immediately put a Homer before me, and after that an ode in 
Horace. I turned my eyes upon my father, and perceived him to 
be in considerable agitation. There happened to be no occasion for 
it, as the passages were familiar to me, and my amiable examiner 

seemed 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 49 

seemed perfectly disposed to approve, cautioning me however not 
to read in too declamatory a style, " which," said he, " my boys will 
" call conceited/' It was highly gratifying to me to hear him say, 
that he had found the boys, who came out of Mr. Kinsman's hands, 
generally better grounded in their business than those, who came 
from other schools. The next day he gave me a short examination 
for form-sake at the table, and placed me in the Shell. As I was 
then only twelve years old, and small in stature for my years, 
my location in so high a class was regarded with some surprise by 
the corps, into which I was so unexpectedly enrolled. Doctor 
Johnson, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, was then second master; 
Vincent Bourne, well known to the literary world for his elegant 
Latin verses, was usher of the fifth form, and Lloyd, afterwards 
second master, was at the fourth. Cracherode, the learned collector 
and munificent benefactor to the Royal Museum, was in the head 
election, and at that time as grave, studious and reserved as he was 
through life; but correct in morals and elegant in manners, not 
courting a promiscuous acquaintance, but pleasant to those who 
knew him, beloved by many and esteemed b} r all. At the head of 
the town boys was the Earl of Huntingdon, whom I should not 
name as a boy, for he was even then the courtly and accomplished 
gentleman such as the world saw and acknowledged him to be. 
The late Earl of Bristol, the late Earl of Buckinghamshire, and 
the late Right Honorable Thomas Harley were my form-fellows, the 
present Duke of Richmond, then Lord March, Warreo Hastings, 
Colman and Lloyd were in the under school, and what is a very 

h extraordinary 



50 MEMOIRS OF 

extraordinary coincidence, there were then in school together three 
boys, Hinchliffe, Smith and Vincent, who afterwards succeeded to 
be severally head masters of Westminster School and not by the 
decease of any one of them. 

Hinchliffe might well be called the child of fortune, for he was 
born in penury and obscurity, and was lifted into opulence and high 
station, not by the elasticity of his own genius, but by that lucky 
combination of opportunities, which merit has no share in making, 
and modesty no aptitude to seize. At Trinity College I knew him 
as an under-graduate below my standing ; in the revolution of a 
few years I saw him in the station, aforetime filled by my grand- 
father as master of the college, and holding with it the bishopric k. 
of Peterborough; thus doubly dignified with those preferments, 
which had separately rewarded the learned labours of Cumberland 
and Bentley. 

Smith laboured longer and succeeded less, yet he wisely chose 
his time for relaxation and retirement, whilst he was yet unexhausted 
by his toils, sufficiently affluent to enjoy his independance, and, 
with the consciousness of having done his duty, to consult his ease, 
and to dismiss his cares. 

Vincent, whom I love as a friend and honour as a scholar, has 
at length found that station in the deanery of Westminster, which, 
whilst it relieves him from the drudgery of the school-master, keeps 
him still attached to the interests of the school, and eminently 
concerned in the superintendance and protection of it. As boy 
and man he made his passage twice through the forms of West- 
minster, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 51 

minster, rising step by step from the very last boy to the very captain 
of the school, and again from the junior usher through every grada- 
tion to that of second and ultimately of senior master ; thus, with 
the interval of four years only devoted to his degree at Cambridge, 
Westminster has indeed kept possession of his person, but has let 
the world partake with her in the profit of his researches. Without 
deserting the laborious post, to which his duty fettered him, his 
excursive genius led him over seas and countries far remote, to 
follow and develope tracts, redeem authorities and dig up evi- 
dences long buried in the grave of ages. This is the more to his 
honour as his hours of study were never taken but from his hours 
of relaxation, and he stole no moment from the instruction of 
the boy to enrich the understanding of the man. His last work, 
small in bulk, but great in matter, Avas an unanswerable defence of 
public education, by which, with an acuteness that reflects credit 
on his genius, and a candour that does honour to his heart, he 
demonstrates the advantages of that system, which had so well 
prospered under his care, and generously forbears to avail himself 
of those arguments, which in a controversy with such an opponent 
some men would have resorted to. Let the mitred preacher against 
public schools rejoice in silence at his escape, but when the yet 
un-mitred master of the Temple, indisputably one of the first 
scholars and finest writers of his time, leaves the master of West- 
minster in possession of the field, it is not from want of courage, 
it less can be from want of capacity, to prolong the contest ; it can 

ii 2 only 



52 MEMOIRS OF 

only be from the operation of reason on a candid mind, and a 
clearer view of that system, which whilst he was denouncing he 
probably did not recollect that he was himself most unequivocally 
patronizing in the instance of his own son. Diversion of thought I 
well know is not uncommon with him, perversion never will be 
imputed to him. 

When I found upon coming into the Shell that my station was 
to be quiescent, and that all challenging for places was at an end, 
I regretted it as an opportunity lost for turning out with new com- 
petitors, so much my seniors in age, and who seemed to regard me 
with an air of conscious superiority. I sate down however with 
ardor to my school business and also to my private studies, and I 
soon perceived that I had now no discouragements to contend with 
in my attempts at composition, for the very first exercise in Latin 
verse, which I gave in, gained the candid approbation of the 
master, and from that moment I acquired a degree of confidence 
in myself, that gave vigour to my exertions ; and though I bear all 
possible respect and gratitude to the memory of that kind friend of 
my youth, whose rigour was only the effect of anxiety for my well- 
doing, yet 1 cannot look back to this period of my education 
without acknowledging the advantages I experienced in being thus 
transplanted to Westminster, where to attempt was to succeed, and 
placed under a master, whose principle it evidently was to cherish 
every spark of genius, which he could discover in his scholars, and 
who seemed determined so to exercise his authority, that our best 

motives 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 53 

motives for obeying him should spring from the affection, that we 
entertained for him. Arthur Kinsman certainly knew how to make 
his boys scholars; Doctor Nichols had the art of making his scholars 
gentlemen ; for there was a court of honour in that school, to whose 
unwritten laAvs every member of our community was amenable, and 
which to transgress by any act of meanness, that exposed the 
offender to public contempt, was a degree of punishment, compared 
to which the being sentenced to the rod would have been considered 
as an acquittal or reprieve. 

Whilst I am making this remark an instance occurs to me of a 
certain boy from the fifth, who was summoned before the seniors in 
the seventh, and convicted of an offence, which in the high spirit of 
that school argued an abasement of principle and honour: Doctor 
Nichols having stated the case, demanded their opinion of the 
crime and what degree of punishment they conceived it to deserve; 
their answer was unanimously — " The severest that could be 
" inflicted" — " I can inflict none more severe than you have given 
" him," said the master, and dismissed him without any other 
chastisement. 

It was not many days after my admission that I myself stood 
before him as a culprit, having been reported by the monitor for 
escaping out of the Abbey during divine service, and joining a party 
of my school-fellows for the unjustifiable purpose of intruding 
ourselves upon a meeting of quakcrs at their devotions. We had 
not been guilty of any gross impertinence, but the offence was 
highly reprehensible, and when my turn came to be called up to 

the 



54 MEMOIRS OF 

the master, I presume he saw my contrition, when, turning a mild 
look upon me, he said aloud — Erubitit, salva est res, — and sent me 
back to my seat. 

Was it possible not to love a character like this ? Nichols 
certainly was a complete fine gentleman in his office, and intitled 
to the respect and affection of his scholars, who in his person found 
a master not only of the dead languages, but also of the living 
manners. As for me, who had experienced his lenity in the instance 
above related, it cannot be to my credit that I was destined to put 
his candour once more to the proof, yet so it was that in an idle 
moment I was disingenuous enough to give in an exercise in Latin 
verse, every line of which I had stolen out of Duport, if I rightly 
recollect. It passed inspection without discovery, and Doctor 
Nichols, after commending me for the composition, read my 
verses aloud to the seniors in the seventh form, and was proceeding 
to renew his praises, when being touched with remorse for the 
disgraceful trick, by which I had imposed upon him, I fairly con- 
fessed that I had pirated every syllable, and humbly begged his 
pardon — he paused a few moments, and then replied — " Child, I 
" forgive you; go to your seat, and say nothing of the matter. 
" You have gained more credit with me by your ingenuous confes- 
" sion,* than you could have got by your verses, had they been your 
" own — " I must be allowed to add, in palliation of this disrepu- 
table anecdote, that I had the grace to make the voluntary atone- 
ment next morning of an exercise as tolerable as my utmost pains 
and capacity could render it. I gave it in uncalled for ; it was 

graciously 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 55 

graciously received, and I took occasion to apprize the seniors in 
the seventh, that I had repented of my attempt. 

About this time the victory of Culloden having given the death's- 
blovv to the rebel cause, the Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino were 
beheaded upon Tower Hill. The elegant person of the former, and 
the intrepid deportment of the latter, when suffering on the scaffold, 
drew pity even from the most obdurate, and I believe it was at that 
time very generally lamented, that mercy, the best attribute of 
kings, was not, or could not be, extended to embrace their melan- 
choly case : every heart that felt compassion for their fate could 
find a plea for their offence ; amongst us at school we had a great 
majority on the side of mercy, and not a few, who in the spirit of 
those times, divided in opinion with their party. In the mean while 
it seemed a point of honour with the boys neither to inflame nor 
insult each other's feelings on this occasion, and I must consider the 
decorum observed by such young partisans on such an occasion as 
a circumstance very highly to their credit. I don't doubt but 
respect and delicacy towards our kind and Avell-beloved master had 
a leading share in disposing them to that orderly and humane beha- 
viour. 

When the rebels were in march and had advanced to Derby 
appearances were very gloomy ; there was a language held by some, 
who threw off all reserve, that menaced danger, and intimidated 
many of the best affected. In the height of this alarm, the Honor- 
able Mrs. Wentworth, grandmother of the late Marquis of Rock- 
ingham, fearing that the distinguished loyalty of her noble house 

might 



56 



MEMOIRS OF 



might expose her to pillage, secured her papers and buried her 



plate, flying to my father's house for refuge, where she remained 
an inmate during the immediate pressure of the danger she appre- 
hended. Here I found her at my breaking up from school, a fugi- 
tive from her mansion at Harrowden, and residing in the parsonage 
house at Stanwick. She was a venerable and excellent lady, and 
retained her friendship for my family to her death : she gave me 
a copy of the great Earl of Strafford's Letters in two folio volumes 
magnificently bound. 

This was the time for my good father, who I verily think never 
knew fear, to stand forward in the exertion of that popularity, 
which was almost without example. He had been conspicuously 
active in assembling the people of the neighbouring parishes, where 
his influence laid, and persuading them to enroll and turn out in 
the defence of their country. This he did in the very crisis of 
general despondency and alarm, whilst the disaffected in a near- 
neighbouring quarter, abetted by a noble family, which I need not 
name, in the height of their exultation were burning him in effigy, 
as a person most obnoxious to their principles and most hostile to 
their cause. In a short time, at the expence merely of the enlisting 
shilling per man, he raised two full companies of one hundred each 
for the regiment then enrolling under the command of the Earl of 
Halifax, and marched them in person to Northampton, attended 
by four picked men on his four coach horses, where he was received 
on his entrance into the town with shouts and acclamations expres- 
sive of applause so fairly merited. The Earl of Halifax, then high 

in 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 57 

in character and graceful in his person, received this tribute of nry 
father's loyalty as might naturally be expected, and as a mark of 
his consideration insisted upon bestowing one of these companies 
upon me, for which I had the commission, though I was then too 
young to take the command. An officer was named, with the 
approbation of my father, to act in my place, and the regiment set 
out on their route for Carlisle, then in the hands of the Highlanders. 
There manjr of them lost their lives in the siege, and the small pox 
made such cruel havock amongst our young peasantry, that, al- 
though they had in the first instance been cheaply raised, the dis- 
tresses of their families brought a very considerable and lasting 
charge upon the bounty of my father. 

I remained at Westminster School, as well as I can recollect, 
half a year in the Shell, and one year in the sixth form, and I can- 
not reflect upon this period of my education without acknowledging 
the reason I have to be contented with the time so passed. I did 
not indeed drink long and deeply at the Helicon of that distin- 
guished seminary, but I had a taste of the spring and felt the 
influence of the waters. In point of composition I particularly 
profited, for which I conceive there is in that school a kind of taste 
and character, peculiar to itself, and handed down perhaps from 
times long past, which seems to mark it out for a distinction, that 
it may indisputably claim, that of having been above all others the 
most favoured cradle of the Muses. If any are disposed to question 
this assertion, let them turn to the lives and histories of the poets, 
and satisfy their doubts. I know there is a tide, that flows from 

i the 



58 MEMOIRS OF 

the very fountain-head of power, that has long run strongly in ano- 
ther channel, but the vicinity of Windsor Castle is of no benefit to 
the discipline and good order of Eton School. A wise father will 
no more estimate his son's improvement by the measure of his 
boarding house bills and pocket money amount, than a good soldier 
will fix his preference on a corps, because it happens to figure in the 
most splendid uniform, and indulge at the most voluptuous and 
extravagant mess. 

When I returned to school I was taken as a boarder into the 
family of Edmund Ashby Esquire, elder brother of Waring, who 
had been married to my father's sister. This gentleman had a wife 
and three daughters, and occupied a spacious house in Peter Street, 
two doors from the turning out of College Street. Having been set 
aside by the will of his father, he was in narrow circumstances, and 
his style of living was that of oeconomy upon the strictest scale. 
No visitor ever entered his doors, nor did he ever go out of them in 
search of amusement or society. Temperate in the extreme, placid 
and unruffled, he simply vegetated without occupation, did nothing, 
and had nothing to do, never seemed to trouble himself with much 
thinking, or interrupt the thoughts of others with much talking, and 
I don't recollect ever to have found him engaged with a newspaper, 
or a book, so that had it not been for the favours I received from a 
few Canary birds which the ladies kept, I might as well have boarded 
in the convent of La Trappe. I confess my spirits felt the gloomy 
influence of the sphere I lived in, and my nights were particularly 
long and heavy, annoyed as they were by the yells and howlings of 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 59 

the crews of the depredators, which infested that infamous quarter, 
and sometimes even roused and alarmed us by their pilfering 
attacks. In some respects however I was benefited by my removal 
from Ludford's, as I was no longer under the strict confinement of 
a boarding house, but was once or twice allowed to go, under 
proper convoy, to the play, where for the first time in my life I was 
treated with the sight of Garrick in the character of Lothario ; 
Quin played Horatio, Ryan Altamont, Mrs. Cibber Calista and 
Mrs. Pritchard condescended to the humble part of Lavinia. I 
enjoyed a good view of the stage from the front row of the gallery, 
and my attention was rivetted to the scene. I have the spectacle 
even now as it were before my eyes. Quin presented himself upon 
the rising of the curtain in a green velvet coat embroidered down 
the seams, an enormous full bottomed periwig, rolled stockings and 
high-heeled square-toed shoes : with very little variation of cadence, 
and in a deep full tone, accompanied by a sawing kind of action, 
which had more of the senate than of the stage in it, he rolled out 
his heroics with an air of dignified indifference, that seemed to 
disdain the plaudits, that were bestowed upon him. Mrs. Cibber 
in a key, high-pitched but sweet withal, sung or rather recitatived 
Rowe's harmonious strain, something in the manner of the Impro- 
visatories : it was so extremely wanting in contrast, that, though it 
did not wound the ear, it wearied it ; when she had once recited two 
or three speeches, I could anticipate the maimer of every succeed- 
ing one; it was like a long old legendary ballad of innumerable 
stanzas, every one of which is sung to the same tune, eternally 
% i 2 chiming 



60 MEMOIRS OF 

chiming in the ear without variation or relief. Mrs. Pritchard was 
an actress of a different cast, had more nature, and of course more 
change of tone, and variety both of action and expression : in my 
opinion the comparison was decidedly in her favour; but when 
after long and eager expectation I first beheld little Garrick, then 
young and light and alive in every muscle and in every feature, 
come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont 
and heavy-paced Horatio — heavens, what a transition ! — it seemed 
as if a whole century had been stept over in the transition of a 
single scene ; old things were done away, and a new order at once 
brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to 
dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age, too long 
attached to the prejudices of custom, and superstitiously devoted 
to the illusions of imposing declamation. This heaven-born actor 
was then struggling to emancipate his audience from the slavery 
they were resigned to, and though at times he succeeded in throw- 
ing in some gleams of new born light upon them, yet in general they 
seemed to love darkness better than light, and in the dialogue of 
altercation between Horatio and Lothario bestowed far the greater 
show of hands upon the master of the old school than upon the 
founder of the new. I thank my stars, my feelings in those mo- 
ments led me right ; they were those of nature, and therefore could 
not err. 

At the house of Mr. Ashby I had a room to myself, a solitude 
within it, and silence Avithout ; I had no plea for neglecting my 
studies, for I had no avocations to draw me off, and no amuse- 
ments 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 6*1 

ments to resort to. I pressed my private studies without intermis- 
sion, and having taken up the Georgicks for recreation-sake, I 
began to entertain myself with a translation in blank verse of Vir- 
gil's beautiful description of the plague amongst the cattle, begin- 
ning at verse 478 of the third book, and continued to the end of 
the same, viz — 

Hie quondam morbo cadi miseranda coorta est 
Tempest as — &c. &c. 

As this is one of the very few samples of my Juvenilia, which I 
have thought well enough of to preserve, I shall now insert it 
verbatim from my first copy, and, without repeating former apolo- 
gies, submit it unaltered in a single instance to the candour of 
the reader — 



" Here once from foul and sickly vapours sprung 
A piteous plague, through all th' autumnal heats 

" Fatally raging : not a beast throughout, 

" Savage or tame, escap'd the general bane. 

" The foodful pasture and frequented pool 

" Lay charg'd with mischief; death itself assum'd 
Strange forms of horror, for when fiery drought 

" Pervasive, coursing through the circling blood, 

" The feeble limbs had wasted, straight again 

" The oozy poison work'd its cursed way, 

" Sappin 



c 



c 



62 MEMOIRS OF 

" Sapping the solid bones ; they by degrees 
" Sunk to corruption. Oft the victim beast, 
" As at the altar's sacred foot it stood, 
" With all its wreathy honours on its head, 
" Dropt breathless, and escaped the tardy blow. 
" Or if its lingering spirit might chance t' await 
" The priest's death-dealing hand, no flames arise 
" From the disposed entrails ; there they lie 
" In thick and unpresaging smoke obscur'd. 
" The questioned augur holds his peace, and sees 
" His divination foil'd ; the slaughtering blade 
" Scarce quits its paly hue, and the light sand 
" Scarce blushes with the thin and meagre blood. 

" Hence o'er the pasture rich and plenteous stalls 
" The tender herd in fragrant sighs expire ; 
" Fell madness seizes the domestic dog ; 
" The pursy swine heave with repeated groans, 
" A rattling cough inflames their swelling throats : 
" No toils secure, no palm the victor-horse 
" Availeth, now no more the wholesome spring 
" Delights, no longer now the once-lov'd mead ; 
" The fatal ill prevails ; with anguish stung 
" Raging he stamps, his ears hang down relax'd ; 
" Sometimes an intermitting sweat breaks forth, 
" Cold ever at th' approach of death; again 
" The dry and staring hide grows stiff and hard, 



" Scorch'd 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 63 

" Scorch VI and impasted with the feverish heat. 

14 Such the first signs of ruin, but at length 

" When the accomplish'd and mature disease 

" With its collected and full vigour works, 

" The rcd'ning eye-balls glow with baneful fire, 

" The deep and hollow breath with frequent groans, 

" Piteous variety — ! is sorely mix'd, 

" And long-drawn sighs distend the labouring sides : 

" Then forth the porches of the nose descends, 

" As from a conduit, blood defiTd and black, 

" And 'twixt the glew'd and unresolved jaws 

" The rough and clammy tongue sticks fact — at first 

" With generous w r ine they drench'd the closing throat — 

" Sole antidote, worse bane at last — for then 

" Dire madness — such as the just Gods to none 

" Save to the bad consign ! — at the last pang 

" Arose, whereat their teeth with fatal gripe, 

" Like pale and ghastly executioners, 

" Their fair and sightly limbs all mangled o'er. 

" The lab'ring ox, while o'er the furrow'd land 
" He trails the tardy plough, down drops at once, 
" Forth issues bloody foam, till the last groan 
" Gives a long close to his labours : The sad hind 
" Unyokes his widow'd and complainful mate, 
" Leaving the blasted and imperfect work 
" Where the fix'd ploughshare points the luckless spot. 

"Tin- 



64 MEMOIRS OF 

" The shady covert, where the lofty trees 
" Form cool retreat, the lawns, whose springing herb 
" Yields food ambrosial, the transparent stream, 
" Which o'er the jutting stones to th' neighb'ring mead 
" Takes its fantastic course, these now no more 
" Delight, as they were wont, rather afflict, 
" With him they cheer'd, with him their joys expir'd, 
" Joys only in participation dear : 
" Famine instead stares in his hollow sides, 
" His leaden eye-balls, motionless and fix'd, 
" Sleep in their sockets, his unnerved neck 
" Hangs drooping down, death lays his load upon him, 
" And bows him to the ground — what now avail 
" His useful toils, his life of service past ? 
" What though full oft he turn'd the stubborn glebe, 
" It boots not now — yet have these never felt 
" The ills of riot and intemperate draughts, 
" Where the full goblet crowns the luscious feast : 
" Their only feast to graze the springing herb 
" O'er the fresh lawn, or from the pendant bough 
" To crop the savbury leaf, from the clear spring, 
" Or active stream refined in its course, 
" They slake their sober thirst, their sweet repose 
" Nor cares forbid, nor soothing arts invite, 
" But pure digestion breeds and light repast. 
" 'Twas then great Juno's altar ceas'd to smoke 



With 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 65 

" With blood of bullocks, and the votive car 

" With huge misshapen buffaloes was drawn 

" To the high temples. Each one till'd his field, 

" Each sow'd his acres with their owner's hand, 

" Or, bending to the yoke with straining neck, 

" Up the high steep dragg'd the slow load along. 

" No more the wolf with crafty siege infests 

" The nightly fold ; more pressing cares than these 

" Engage the sly contriver and subdue. 

" The fearful deer league with the hostile hound, 

" And ply about the charitable door 

" Familiar, unannoy'd. The mighty deep 

" At every mouth disgorg'd the scaly tribe, 

" And on the naked shore expos'd to view 

" The various wreck : the farthest rivers felt 

" The vast discharge and swarm'd with monstrous shapes. 

" In vain the viper builds his mazy cell ; 

" Death follows him through all his wiles : in vain 

" The snake involves him deep beneath the flood, 

" Wond'ring he starts, erects his scales and dies. 

" The birds themselves confess the tainted air, 

" Drop while on wing, and as they soar expire. 

" Nought now avails the pasture fresh and new ; 

" Each art applied turns opposite ; e'en they, 

" Sage Chiron, sage Melampus, they despair, 

" Whilst pale Tisiphone, come fresh from hell, 

k " Driving 



66 MEMOIRS OF 

" Driving before her Pestilence and Fear, 

" Her ministers of vengeance to fulfil 

" Her dread commission, rages all abroad, 

" And lifts herself on ruin day by day 

" More and more high. The hollow banks resound, 

" The winding streams and hanging hills repeat 

" Loud groans from ev'ry herd, from ev'ry fold 

" Complaintive murmurs ; heaps on heaps they fall, 

" There where they fall they lie, corrupt and rot 

" Within the lothsome stalls, fill'd and dam'd up 

" With impure carcases, till they perform 

" The necessary office and confine 

" Deep under ground the foul offensive stench : 

" For neither might you dress the putrid hide, 

" Nor could the purifying stream remove, 

" The vigorous all-subduing flame expel 

" The close incorporate poison : none essay'd 

" To shear the tainted fleece, or bind the wool, 

" For who e'er dar'd to cloath his desperate limbs 

" With that Nessean garment, a foul sweat, 

" A vile and lep'rous tetter bark'd about 

" All his smooth body, nor long he endur'd, 

" But in the sacred fire consumed and died." 

A great and heavy affliction now befel my parents and myself. 
A short time before my holidays in autumn my father and mother 

came 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 67 

came to town, and brought my eldest sister Joanna with them, a 
very lovely girl then in her seventeenth year. She caught the small 
pox, and died in the house of the Reverend Doctor Cutts Barton, 
Rector of Saint Andrew's Holborn, who kindly permitted my father 
to remove thither, when she sickened with that cruel disease. She 
was truly most engaging in her person, and, though much admired, 
her manners were extremely modest, and her temper mild and 
gentle. When I first visited her, after the symptoms of the disease 
were upon her, she told me she was persuaded she had caught 
the small pox, and that it would be fatal to her. Her augury was 
too true ; it was confluent, and assistance was in vain ; the regimen 
then followed was exactly contrary to the present improved method 
of treating that disease, which, when it had kept her in torments 
for eleven days, having effectually destroyed her beauty, finally 
put an end to her life. My father, who tenderly loved her, sub- 
mitted to the afflicting dispensation in silent sadness, never venting 
a complaint ; my mother's sorrows were not under such controul, 
and as to me, devoted to her as I had been from my cradle, the 
shock appeared to threaten me with such consequences, that my 
father resolved upon taking me out of town immediately, and we 
went down to our abode at Stanwick, a sad and melancholy party, 
Avhile Mr. Ashby, my father's nephew, staid in town and attended 
the body of his lamented cousin to the grave. My surviving sisters, 
Elizabeth and Mary, the elder of whom was six years 3 r oungcr than 
myself, had been left in the country; the attentions, which these 
young creatures had a claim to, the consolatory visits of our friends, 

K 2 and 



68 MEMOIRS OF 

and the healing hand of time by degrees assuaged the keenness of 
affliction, and patient resignation did the rest. 

The alarm, which my father had been under on account of my 
health upon my sister's death, and the abhorrence he had conceived 
of London since that unfortunate event, determined him against 
my return to Westminster, and though another year, which my 
early age might well have dispensed with, was recommended by 
Doctor Nichols, and would most probably have been so employed 
with advantage to my education, yet the measure was taken, and, 
though only in my fourteenth year, I Avas admitted of Trinit} r College 
in Cambridge. There were yet some months of the vacation unex- 
pired, and that I might pass this time at home with the more advan- 
tage, my father prevailed upon a neighbouring clergyman, the 
Reverend Mr. Thomas Strong, to reside with us and assist me in my 
studies. A better man I never knew, a brighter scholar might 
easily have been found, yet we read together some few hours in 
every day, and those readings were almost entirely confined to the 
Greek Testament : there I had a teacher in Mr. Strong well worthy 
of my best attention, for none could better recommend by practice 
what he illustrated by precept, than this exemplary young man. 
He sometime after married very happily, and resided on his living 
of Hargrave in our neighbourhood universally respected, and I trust 
it is not amongst my sins of omission ever after to have forgotten 
his services, or failed in my attention to him. 

When the time came for me to commence my residence in 
College, my father accompanied me and put me under the care 

of 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 69 

of the Reverend Doctor Morgan, an old friend of our family and 
a senior fellow of that society. My rooms were closely adjoining 
to his, belonging to that staircase, which leads to the chapel bell ; 
he was kind to me when we met, but as tutor I had few commu- 
nications with him, for the gout afforded him not many intervals 
of ease, and with the exception of a few trifling readings in Tully's 
Offices, by which I was little edified, and to which I paid little or 
no attention, he left me and one other pupil, my friend and inti- 
mate Mr. William Rudd of Durham, to choose and pursue our 
studies, as we saw fit. This dereliction of us was inexcusable, for 
Rudd was a youth of fine talents and a well-grounded scholar. 
In the course of no long time however Doctor Morgan left college, 
and went to reside upon his living of Gainford in the bishoprick 
of Durham, and I was turned over to the Reverend Doctor Philip 
Young, professor of oratory in the University, and afterwards 
Bishop of Norwich ; what Morgan made a very light concern, 
Young made an absolute sinecure, for from him I never received 
a single lecture, and I hope his lordship's conscience was not much 
disturbed on my account, for, though he gave me free leave to be 
idle, I did not make idleness my choice. 

In the last year of my being under-graduate, when I com- 
menced Soph, in the very first act that was given out to be kept in 
the mathematical schools, I was appointed to an opponency, when 
at that time I had not read a single proposition in Euclid; I had 
now been just turned over to Mr. Backhouse, the Westminster 
tutor, who gave regular lectures, and fulfilled the duties of his 

charge 



< 



70 MEMOIRS OF 

charge ably and conscientiously. Totally unprepared to answer 
the call now made upon me, and acquit myself in the schools, I 
resorted to him in my distress, and through his interference my 
name was withdrawn from the act ; in the mean time I was sent 
for by the master Doctor Smith, the learned author of the well 
known Treatises upon Optics and Harmonics, and the worthy suc- 
cessor to mx grandfather Bentley, who strongly reprobated the 
neglect ,01 my former tutors, and recommended me to lose no 
more/time in preparing myself for my degree, but to apply closely 
to my academical studies for the remainder of the year, which I 
assured him I would do. 

As I did not belong to Mr. Backhouse till I had commenced 
Soph, but nominally to those, who left me to myself, I had hitherto 
pursued those studies that were familiar to me, and indulged my 
passion for the classics with an ardor, that rarely knew any inter- 
mission or relief. I certainly did not wantonly misuse my time, or 
yield to any even of the slightest excesses, that youth is prone to : 
I never frequented any tavern, neither gave nor received entertain- 
ments, nor partook in any parties of pleasure, except now and then 
in a ride to the hills, so that I thank God I have not to reproach 
myself with any instances of misconduct towards a generous father, 
who at this tender age committed me to my own discretion and 
confided in me. I look back therefore upon this period of my life 
with a tranquil conscience; I even dwell upon it with peculiar 
delight, for within those maternal walls I passed 3 7 ears given up 
to study and those intellectual pure enjoyments, which leave no 

self-reproach, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 71 

self-reproach, whilst with the works of my ancestors in my hands, 
and the impression of their examples on my heart, I flattered my- 
self in the belief that I was pressing forward ardently and success- 
fully to follow them in their profession, and peradventure not fall 
far behind them in their fame. This was the great aim and object 
of my ambition ; for this I laboured, to this point I looked, and all 
my world was centered in my college. Every scene brought to my 
mind the pleasing recollection of times past, and filled it with the 
animating hope of times to come : as my college duties and atten- 
dances were occupations that I took pleasure in, punctuality and 
obedience did not put me to the trouble of an effort, for when to 
be employed is our amusement, there is no self-denial in not being 
idle. If I had then had a tutor, who Mould have systematized and 
arranged my studies, it would have been happy for me; but I had 
no such director, and with my books before me, (poets, historians 
and philosophers) sate down as it were to a ccena dub/a, with an 
eager, rather than a discriminating, appetite; I am now speaking 
of my course of reading from my admission to my commencing 
Soph, when I was called off to my academical studies. In that 
period my stock of books was but slender, till Doctor Richard 
Bentley had the goodness to give me a valuable parcel of my 
grandfather's books and papers, containing his correspondence with 
many of the foreign literati upon points of criticism, some letters 
from Sir Isaac Newton, a pretty large body of notes for an edition 
of Lucan's Pharsalia, which I gave to my uncle Bentley, and were 
published under his inspection by Dodsley at Mr. Walpole's press, 

with 



\ 



/ 



72 MEMOIRS OF 

with sundry other manuscripts, and a considerable number of 
Greek and Latin books, mostly collated by him and their margins 
filled with alterations and corrections in his own hand, neatly and 
legibly written in a very small character. The possession of these 
books was most gratifying and acceptable to me; some few of them 
were extremely rare, and in the history I have given in The Observers 
of the Greek Writers, more particularly of the Comic Poets now 
lost, I have availed myself of them, and I am vain enough to be- 
lieve/ho such collection of the scattered extracts, anecdotes and 
remains of those dramatists is any where else to be found. The 
donor of these books was the nephew of my grandfather, and inhe- 
rited by will the whole of his library, which at his death was sold 
by auction in Leicestershire, where he resided in his latter years 
on his rectorj T of Nailstone : he was himself no inconsiderable 
collector, and it is much to be regretted that his executors took 
this method of disposing of his books, by which they became dis- 
persed in small lots amongst many country purchasers, who pro- 
bably did not know their value. He was an accurate collater, and 
for his judgment in editions much resorted to by Doctor Mead, 
with whom he lived in great intimacy. During the time that he 
resided in college, for he was one of the senior fellows of Trinity, 
he gave me every possible proof, not only in this instance of his 
donation, but in many others, of his favor and protection. 

At the same time Doctor Richard Walker, the friend of my 
grandfather, and vice-master of the college, never failed to distin- 
guish me by every kindness in his power. He frequently invited 

me 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 73 

me to his rooms, which I had so often visited as a child, and 
which had the further merit with me as having been the residence 
of Sir Isaac Newton, every relick of whose studies and experiments 
were respectfully preserved to the minutest particular, and pointed 
out to me by the good old vice-master with the most circumstantial 
precision. . He had many little anecdotes of my grandfather, which 
to me at least were interesting, and an old servant- Deborah, whom 
he made a kind of companion, and who was much in request for 
the many entertaining circumstances she could narrate of Sir Isaac 
Newton, when she waited upon him as his bed maker, and also of 
Doctor Bentley, with whom she lived for several years after Sir 
Isaac left college, and at the death of my grandfather was passed 
over to Doctor Walker, in whose service she died. 

My mind in these happy days was so tranquil, and my time 
passed in so uniform a tenor of study and retirement, that though 
it is a period pleasing to me to reflect upon, yet it furnishes little 
that is worthy to be recorded. I believe I hardly ever employed 
myself upon English composition, except on the event of the Prince 
of Wales's death, when amongst others I sent in my contribution 
of elegiac verses to the university volume, and very indifferent ones 
they were. To my Latin declamations I paid my best attention, 
for these were recited publicly in the chapel after evening prayers 
on Saturdays, when it was open to all, who chose to resort thither, 
and we were generally nattered by pretty full audiences. 

The year of trial now commenced, for which, through the neg- 
lect of my tutors, I was, as an academical student, totally unpre- 

L pared. 



74 MEMOIRS OF 

pared. Determined to use every effort in my power for redeeming 
my lost time, I began a course of study so apportioned as to allow 
myself but six hours sleep, to which I strictly adhered, living 
almost entirely upon milk, and using the cold bath very frequently. 
As I was then only seventeen years old, and of a frame by no means 
robust, many of my friends remonstrated against the severity of this 
regimen, and recommended more moderation, but the encourage- 
ment I met in the rapidity of my progress through all the dr} r and 
elementary parts of my studies determined me to persist with ardour, 
and made me deaf to their advice. In the several branches of the 
mechanics, hydrostatics, optics and astronomy I consulted the best 
treatises, and made myself master of them ; I worked all my propo- 
sitions, formed all my minutes, and even my thoughts, in Latin, 
whereby I acquired a facility of expounding, solving and arguing 
in that language, in which I may presume to say I had advantages, 
which some of the best of my contemporaries in our public dispu- 
tations were but too sensible of, for so long as my knowledge of a 
question could supply matter for argument, I never felt any want 
of terms for explanation. 

When I found myself prepared to take my part in the public 
schools, I thirsted for the opportunity, which I no longer dreaded, 
and with this my ambition was soon gratified, being appointed to 
keep an act> and three respectable opponents singled out against 
me, the first of which was looked up to as the best of the year. 
When his name was given out for disputation the schools never 
failed to be crowded, and as I had drawn my questions from New- 
ton's 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 75 

ton's Principia, I gave him fair scope for the display of his supe- 
riority, and was by all considered, (for his fame was universal) as a 
mere child in his hands, justly to be punished for my temerity, and 
self-devoted to complete confutation. I was not only a mere novice 
in the schools but also a perfect stranger to the gentlemen opposed 
to me; when therefore mounted on a bass in the rostrum, which 
even then I could scarcely overtop, I contemplated, in the person 
of my antagonist, a North-country black-bearded philosopher, who 
at an advanced age had admitted at Saint John's to qualify for 
holy orders, (even at that time a finished mathematician and a 
private lecturer in those studies,) I did not wonder that the con- 
trast of a beardless boy, pale and emaciated as I was then become, 
seemed to attract every body's curiosity ; for after I had concluded 
my thesis, which precedes the disputation, when he ascended his 

seat under the rostrum of the Moderator 

With grave 

Aspect he rose-, and in his rising seemd 

A pillar of strength ; deep in his front engraven 

Deliberation sate — sage he stood 

With Atlantcan shoulders fit to bear 

The weight of mightiest argument 



Formidable as he appeared, I did not feel my spirits sink, for 
I had taken a very careful survey of the ground I was upon, and 
thought myself prepared against any attack he could devise against 
me. I also saw that all advantages, resulting from the unequal 
terms on which we engaged, Avere on my side ; I might obtain glory 

l 2 from 



76 MEMOIRS OF 

from him, and he could but little profit by his triumph over me. 
My heart Avas in my cause, and proudly measuring its importance 
by the crowd it had collected, armed, as I believed myself to be, in 
the full understanding of my questions, and a perfect readiness in 
the language, in which our disputations were to be carried on, I 
waited his attack amidst the hum and murmur of the assembly. 
His argument was purely mathematical, and so enveloped in the 
terms of his art, as made it somewhat difficult for me to discover 
where his syllogism pointed without those aids and delineations, 
which our process did not allow of; I availed myself of my privi- 
lege to call for a repetition of it, when at once I caught the fallacy 
and pursued it with advantage, keeping the clue firm in hand till 
I completely traced him through all the windings of his labyrinth. 
The same success attended me through the remaining seven argu- 
ments, which fell off in strength and subtlety, and his defence be- 
came sullen and morose, his latinity very harsh, inelegant and em- 
barassed, till I saw him descend with no very pleasant countenance, 
whilst it appeared evident to me that my whole audience were not 
displeased with the unexpected turn, which our controversy had 
taken. He ought in course to have been succeeded by a second 
and third opponent, but our disputation had already been pro- 
longed beyond the time commonly allotted, and the schools were 
broken up by the Moderator with a compliment addressed to me in 
terms much out of the usual course on such occasions. 

If it is allowable for me to speak of such trifling events circum- 
stantially and with the importance, which at that time I attached 

to 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 77 

to them, when I knew nothing of this great world beyond the walls 
of my college, I hope this passage will be read with candour, and 
that I shall be pardoned for a long tale told in my old age of the 
first triumph of my youth, earned by extreme hard labour, and 
gained at the risque and hazard of my health by a perseverance in 
so severe a course of study, as brought me ultimately to the very 
brink of the grave. 

Four times I went through these scholastic exercises in the course 
of the year, keeping two acts and as many first opponencies. In 
one of the latter, where I was pitched against an ingenious student 
of my own college, I contrived to form certain arguments, which 
by a scale of deductions so artfully drawn, and involving conse- 
quences, which by mathematical gradations (the premises being 
once granted) led to such unforeseen confutation, that even my 
tutor Mr. Backhouse, to whom I previously imparted them, was 
effectually trapped and could as little parry them, as the gentleman, 
who kept the act, or the Moderator, who filled the chair. 

The last time I was called upon to keep an act in the schools 
I sent in three questions to the Moderator, which he withstood as 
being all mathematical, and required me to conform to the usage 
of proposing one metaphysical question in the place of that, which 
I should think fit to withdraw. This was ground I never liked to 
take, and I appealed against his requisition : the act was accord- 
ingly put by till the matter of right should be ascertained by the 
statutes of the university, and in the result of that enquiry it was 
given for me, and my questions stood. This litigation between the 

Moderator 



78 MEMOIRS OF 

Moderator and an Under-graduate, whose interest in the distribu- 
tion of honors at the ensuing degree laid so much at the mercy of 
his report, made a considerable stir and gave rise to much conver- 
sation; so that when this long suspended act took place, not. only 
the floor of the schools was filled with the juniors, but many of 
high standing in the university assembled in the gallery. The Mo- 
derator had nominated the same gentleman as my first opponent, 
who no doubt felt every motive to renew the contest, and bring 
me to a proper sense of my presumption. The term was now 
drawing near to its close, and I began to feel very sensibly the 
effects of my too intense application, my whole frame being debi- 
litated in a manner, that warned me I had not long to continue my 
course of labour without the interruption of some serious attack ; I 
had in fact the seeds of a rheumatic fever lurking in my constitu- 
tion, and was led between two of my friends and fellow collegians 
to the schools in a very feeble state. I was however intellectually 
alive to all the purposes of the business we were upon, and when I 
observed that the Moderator exhibited symptoms of indisposition 
by resting his head upon the cushion on his desk, I cut short my 
thesis to make way for my opponent, who had hardly brought his 
argument to bear, when the Moderator, on the plea of sudden indis- 
position, dismissed me with a speech, which, though tinctured with 
some petulance, had more of praise in it than I expected to re- 
ceive. 

I yielded now to advice, and paid attention to my health, till 
we were cited to the senate house to be examined for our Bache- 

lors 






RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 79 

lor's degree. It was hardly ever my lot during that examination to 
enjoy any respite. I seemed an object singled out as every man's 
mark, and was kept perpetually at the table under the process of 
question and answer. My constitution just held me up to the ex- 
piration of the scrutiny, and I immediately hastened to my own 
home to alarm my parents with my ghastly looks, and soon fell ill 
of a rheumatic fever, which for the space of six months kept me 
hovering between life and death. The skill of my physician, the 
aforementioned Doctor Wallis of Stamford, and the tender atten- 
tion of the dear friends about me, rescued me at length, and I 
recovered under their care. Whilst I was in this state I had the 
pleasure of hearing from Cambridge of the high station, which had 
been adjudged to me amongst The Wranglers of my year, and I 
further understood how much I was indebted to the generous sup- 
port of that very Moderator, whom I had thwarted in the matter 
of my questions, for this adjudication so much in my favour and 
perhaps above my merits, for my knowledge had been hastily 
attained : a conduct so candid on the part of the Reverend Mr. 
Ray, (fellow of Corpus Christi, and the Moderator, of whom I 
have been speaking) was ever remembered by me with gratitude 
and respect: Mr. Ray was afterwards domectic chaplain to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and, when I was resident in town, I 
waited upon him at Lambeth palace to express my sensibility of 
the very liberal manner, in which he had protected me. 

I now found myself in a station of ease and credit in my native 
college, to which I was attached by every tye, that could endear 

it 



80 



MEMOIRS OF 



it to me. I had changed my Under-graduate's gown, and obtained 
my degree of Bachelor of Arts with honors hardly earned by pains 
the more severe because so long postponed : and now if I have 
been seemingly too elaborate in tracing my own particular pro- 
gress through these exercises, to which the candidate for a degree 
at Cambridge must of necessity conform, it is not merely because 
I can quote my privilege for my excuse, but because I would most 
earnestly impress upon the attention of my reader the extreme 
usefulness of these academical exercises and the studies appertain- 
ing to them, by which I consider all the purposes of an university 
education are completed; and so convinced am I of this, that I 
can hardly allow myself to call that an education, of which they 
do not make a part ; if therefore I am to speak for the discipline 
of the schools, ought I not first to show that I am speaking from 
experience, without which opinions pass for nothing? Having 
therefore first demonstrated what my experience of that discipline 
has been, I have the authority of that, as far as it goes, for an 
opinion in its favour, which every observation of my life has since 
contributed to establish and confirm. What more can any system 
of education hold out to those, who are the objects of it, than 
public honours to distinguish merit, public exercises to awaken 
emulation, and public examinations, which cannot be passed 
without extorting some exertion even from the indolent, nor can 
be avoided without a marked disgrace to the compounder? Now if 
I have any knowledge of the world, any insight into the minds 
and characters of those, whom I have had opportunities of know- 
ing* 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 81 

ing, (and few have lived more and longer amongst mankind) all my 
observations tend to convince me that there is no profession, no art, 
no station or condition in life, to which the studies I have been 
speaking of will not apply and come in aid with profit and advan- 
tage. That mode of investigation step by step, which crowns the 
process of the student by the demonstration and discovery of posi- 
tive and mathematical truth, must of necessity so exercise and 
train him in the habits of following up his subject, be it what it 
may, and working out his proofs, as cannot fail to find their uses, 
whether he, who has them, dictates from the pulpit, argues at the 
bar or declaims in the senate ; nay, there is no lot, no station, (I 
repeat it with confidence) be it either social or sequestered, con- 
spicuous or obscure, professional or idly independent, in which the 
man, once exercised in these studies, though he shall afterwards 
neglect them, will not to his comfort experience some mental 
powers and resources, in which their influence shall be felt, though 
the channels, that conducted it, may from disuse have become ob- 
scure, and no longer to be traced. 

Hear the crude opinions, that are let loose upon society in our 
table conversations; mark the wild and wandering arguments, that 
are launched at random without ever hitting the mark they should 
be levelled at; what does all this noise and nonsense prove, but 
that the talker has indeed acquired the fluency of words, but never 
known the exercise of thought, or attended to the developement of 
a single proposition ? Tell him that he ought to hear what may be 

m said 



82 MEMOIRS OF 

said on the other side of the question — he agrees to it, and either 
begs leave to wind up with a few words more, which he winds and 
wire-draws without end ; or having paused to hear, hears with im- 
patience a very little, foreknows every thing you had further to 
say, cuts short your argument and bolts in upon you — with an 
answer to that argument — ? No ; with a continuation of his own 
gabble, and, having stifled you with the torrent of his trash, places 
your contempt to the credit of his own capacity, and foolishly con- 
ceives he talks with reason because he has not patience to attend 
to any reasoning but his own. 

What are all the quirks and quibbles, that skirmishers in con- 
troversy catch hold of to escape the point of any argument, Avhen 
pressed upon them ? If a laugh, a jeer, a hit of mimickry, or 
buffoonery cannot parry the attack, they find themselves disarmed 
of the only weapons they can wield, and then, though truth should 
stare them in the face, they will affect not to see it: instead of 
receiving conviction as the acquirement of something, which they 
had not themselves and have gained from you, they regard it as an 
insult to their understandings, and grow sullen and resentful ; they 
will then tell you they shall leave you to your own opinions, they 
shall say no more, and with an air of importance wrap themselves 
up in a kind of contemptuous indifference, when their reason for 
saying nothing is only because they have nothing more to say. 
How many of this cast of character are to be met with in the 
world every man of the world can witness. 

There 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 83 

There are also others, whose vivacity of imagination having 
never felt the trammels of a syllogism is for ever flying off into 
digression and display — 

Quo teneam noclo mutant em Protea formas ? — 

To attempt at hedging in these cuckows is but lost labour. 
These gentlemen are very entertaining as long as novelties with no 
meaning can entertain you ; they have a great variety of opinions, 
which, if you oppose, they do not defend, and if you agree with, 
the}' desert. Their talk is like the wild notes of birds, amongst 
which you shall distinguish some of pleasant tone, but out of which 
you compose no tune or harmony of song. These men would have 
set down Archimedes for a fool when he danced for joy at the 
solution of a proposition, and mistaken Newton for a madman, 
when in the surplice, which he put on for chapel over night he was 
found the next morning in the same place and posture fixed in pro- 
found meditation on his theory of the prismatic colours. So great 
is their distaste for demonstration, they think no truth is worth the 
waiting for; the mountain must come to them, they are not by half 
so complaisant as Mahomet. They are not easily reconciled to 
truisms, but have no particular objection to impossibilities. For 
argument they have no ear; it does not touch them; it fetters 
fancy, and dulls the edge of repartee ; if by chance they find 
themselves in an untenable position, and wit is not at hand to 
help them out of it, they will take up with a pun, and ride home 
upon a horse laugh : if they can't keep their ground, they won't 
wait to be attacked and driven out of it. Whilst a reasoning man 

m 2 will 



84 MEMOIRS OF 

will be picking his way out of a dilemma, they, who never reason 
at all, jump over it, and land themselves at once upon new ground, 
where they take an imposing attitude, and escape pursuit. What- 
ever these men do, whether they talk, or write, or act, it is without 
deliberation, without consistency, without plan. Having no ex- 
panse of mind, they can comprehend only in part ; they will pro- 
mise an epic poem, and produce an epigram: In short, they glitter, 
pass away and are forgotten ; their outset makes a show of mighty 
things, they stray out of their course into bye-ways and obliqui- 
ties, and when out of sight of their contemporaries, are for ever lost 
to posterity. 

When characters of this sort come under our observation it is 
easy to discover that their levities and frivolities have their source 
in the errors and defects of education, for it is evident they have 
not been trained in any principles of right-reasoning. Therefore it 
is that I hold in such esteem the academical studies pursued at 
Cambridge, and regard their exercises in the mathematical schools, 
and their examinations in the theatre, as forming the best system, 
which this country offers, for the education of its youth. Persuaded 
as I am of this, I must confess I have ever considered the election 
of scholars from the college of Eton to that of King's in Cambridge, 
as a bar greatly in their disfavour, forasmuch as by the constitution 
of that college they are not subjected to the same process for at- 
taining their degrees, and of course the study of the mathematics 
makes no part of their system, but is merely optional. I leave this 
remark to those, who may think it worthy of their consideration. 

Under-graduates 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 85 

Under-graduates of Trinity College, whether elected from West- 
minster or not, have no such exemptions. 

Plaving now, at an age more than commonly early, obtained my 
Bachelor's degree, with the return of health I resumed my studies, 
and without neglecting those I had so lately been engaged in, 
again took up those authors, who had lain by untouched for a 
whole twelvemonth. I supposed my line in life was decided for 
the church, the profession of my ancestors, and in the course of 
three years I had good reason to expect a fellowship with the de- 
gree of Master of Arts. These views, so suited to my natural dis- 
position, were now before me, and I dwelt upon them with entire 
content. 

Having now been in the habit of reading upon system, I re- 
solved to put my thoughts together upon paper, and began to form 
a kind of Collectanea of my studies. With this view I got together 
all the tracts relative to the controversy between Boyle and Bentley, 
omitting none even of the authorities and passages they referred to, 
and having done this, I compressed the reasonings on both sides into 
a kind of statement and report upon the question in dispute, and 
if in the result my judgment went with him, to whom my inclina- 
tion lent, no learned critic of the present age will condemn me for 
the decision. 

When I had accomplished this I meditated on a plan little short 
of what might be projected for an Universal History, or at least 
for that of the Great Empires in particular. For this purpose I 
began with studying the Sanchoniatho of Bishop Cumberland, con- 
trasting 



86 MEMOIRS OF 

trasting the Phoenician and Egyptian Cosmogonies with that of 
Moses, by which I found myself at length involved in references 
to so many authors, which I had no means of consulting, and so 
hampered by Oriental languages, which I did not understand, .that 
after filling a large folio foul-book, which I still keep in possession, 
I gave up the task, or more properly speaking reduced it to a more 
contracted scale, in which however I contrived to review all the 
several systems of the Heathen Philosophers, and discuss at large 
the tenets and opinions maintained and professed by their respec- 
tive schools and academies. This was a work of labour and con- 
siderable research, and having had lately occasion to resort to it 
for certain purposes, which I have in hand, I must do myself the 
justice to say I found it very accurate, and derived all the aid and 
information from it that I expected or required. That I was at that 
age disposed and able to apply my mind to a work so operose 
and argumentative I ascribe entirely to the nature of the studies, 
and the habitudes of thinking, I had so recently been engaged 
in. 

Thus, after wandering at large for a considerable time without 
any one to guide me, I was at last compelled to chalk out for 
myself a settled plan of reading, which, if I had not been disci- 
plined as above described, I certainly should have long postponed, 
or perhaps never have struck out. Why will not those, whose duty 
it is to superintend the education of their pupils in our universities, 
when they discover talents and a thirst for learning, point out to 
the student the best and nearest road to its attainment? It is 

surely 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 87 

surely within their province to do it, and the benefit would be 
incalculable. 

I well remember, when I was newly come to college, with what 
avidity I read the Greek tragedians, and with what reverence I 
swallowed the absurdities of their chorus, and was bigoted to their 
cold character and rigid unities; and when Mason of Pembroke- 
Hall published his Elfrida after their model, though I did not 
quite agree with him as to his choice of plot, or the perfect legi- 
timacy of his chorus, yet I was warm in my praises of that gene- 
rally-admired production, and in imitation of it planned and com- 
posed an entire drama, of which Charactacus was the hero, with 
Bards and Druids attached to it as a chorus, for whom I wrote 
Odes in the manner of Elfrida; I have this manuscript now in my 
possession, and it is flattering to my choice of subject that Mason, 
with whom I had no communication or correspondence, should 
afterwards strike upon the same character for the hero of his 
drama : but though in this particular I have the good chance to 
agree with him, in point of plot I stray equally from him and from 
the history, for not writing with any thought of publication, I wove 
into my drama some characters and several incidents perfectly 
fictitious : there is a good deal of fancy and some strong writing 
in it, but as a whole it must be read with allowances, and I shall 
therefore pass it over, not wishing to make too many demands upon 
the candour of the reader. 

Whilst I was thus living with my family at Stanwick in the 
enjoyment of every thing that could constitute my felicity, a strong 

contest 



88 MEMOIRS OF 

contest took place upon the approach of the general election, and 
the county of Northampton was hotly canvassed by the rival par- 
ties of Knightly and Hanbury, or in other words by the Tories and 
the Whigs. My father, whose politics accorded with the latter, 
was drawn out upon this occasion, and gave a very active and 
effectual support to his party, and though the cause he embarked 
in was unsuccessful, yet his particular exertions had been such, 
that he might truly have said— . 

Si Pergama clextrd, 
Defendi possent, etiam hotc defensa fuissent . 

This second striking instance of his popularity and influence 
was by no means overlooked by the Earl of Halifax, then high in 
office and Lord Lieutenant of the county. Offers, which he did 
not court, were pressed upon him, but though he was resolute in 
declining all favours personal to himself, yet he was persuaded to 
lend an ear to flattering situations pointed out for me, and my 
destiny was now preparing to reverse those tranquil and delectable 
scenes, which I had hitherto enjoyed, and to transplant me from 
the cloisters of my college, and free range of my studies to the 
desk of a private secretary, and the irksome painful restraints of 
dependence. 

Let me not by my statement of this event appear to lay any 
thing to the charge of my ever dear and honoured father; if I were 
unnaturally disposed to find a fault in his proceeding upon this 
occasion, I must search for it amongst his virtues; he was open, 
warm and unsuspecting; apt to credit others for what was natural 

to 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 89 

to himself, ever inclined to look only on the best side of men and 
things, and certainly not one of the children of this world. If I 
have cause to regret this departure from the line, in which by 
education I had been trained, I am the author of my own mis- 
fortune ; I was perfectly a free agent, and have nobody but my- 
self to accuse. My youth however, and the still unsettled state of 
my health spared me for a time, and my father proposed an excur- 
sion to the city of York for the double purpose of my relaxation 
and my sisters' accomplishments in music and dancing. We had a 
near relation living there, a widow lady, niece to Doctor Bentley, 
who accommodated us with her house, and we passed half a year 
in the society and amusements of the place. This lady, Forster by 
name, and first cousin to my mother, was a woman of superior un- 
derstanding; her opinions were pronounced authoritatively and 
without respect of person; they were considered in York as little 
less than oracular. The style of living in this place was so new to 
me and out of character, when contrasted by the habits of study 
and retirement, which I had been accustomed to, that it seemed to 
enfeeble and depress that portion of genius, which nature had en- 
dowed me with ; I hunted in the mornings, danced in the evenings, 
and devoted but a small portion of my time to any thing that de- 
served the name of study. I had no books of my own, and unfor- 
tunately got engaged with Spenser's Fairy Queen, in imitation of 
which I began to string nonsensical stanzas to the same rhiming 
kind of measure. Though I trust I should not have surrendered 
myself for any length of time to this jingling strain of obsolete ver- 

n sification, 



90 



MEMOIRS OF 



sification, yet I am indebted to my mother for the seasonable con- 
tempt she threw upon my imitations, felt the force of her reproof, 
and laid the Fairy Queen upon its shelf. 

The Earl of Galloway, father of the present Lord, was then 
residing at York with his family ; a beautiful copy of elegiac verses, 
the composition of his daughter Lady Susan, was communicated to 
me, of which the hint seemed to be taken from Hamlet's medita- 
tions on the skull of Yorick. I do not feel myself at liberty to 
publish the elegant poem of that lady, who lived to grace the high 
station which by her birth, virtues and endowments she was entitled 
to, and when I now venture to insert my own, I am fully conscious 
how ill it would endure a comparison with that, which gave occasion 
to it — 

" True ! We must all be chang'd by death, 

" Such is the form the dead must wear, 

" And so, when Beauty yields its breath, 

" So shall the fairest face appear. 

" But let thy soul survey the grace, 
" That yet adorns its frail abode, 
" And through the wond'rous fabric trace 
" The hand of an unerring God. 



" Why does the blood in stated round 
" Its vital warmth throughout dispense? 
" Who tun'd the ear to every sound, 
" And lent the hand its ready sense ? 



" Whence 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 91 

" Whence had the eyes that subtle force, 
" That languor, they by turns display ? 
" Who hung the lips with prompt discourse, 
" And tun'd the soft melodious lay ? 

" What but thy Maker's image there 
" In each external part is seen ? 
" But 'tis thy better part to wear 
" His image pictured best within. 

" Else what availed the raptur'd strain, 
" Did not the mind her aid impart, 
" The melting eye would speak in vain, 
" Flow'd not its language from the heart. 

" The blood with stated pace had crept 
" Along the dull and sluggish veins, 
" The ear insensibly had slept, 
" Though angels sung in choicest strains. 

" It is that spark of quickening fire, 
" To every child of nature giv'n, 
" That either kindles wild desire, 
Or lights us on the road to heav n. 

n 2 



a 



" That 



92 MEMOIRS OF 

" That spark, if Virtue keeps it bright, 
" And Genius fans it into flame, 
" Aspiring mounts, and in its flight, 
" Soars far above this earthly frame. 

" Strong and expansive in its view, 
" It tow'rs amidst the boundless sky, 
" Sees planets other orbs pursue, 
" Whose systems other suns supply. 

" Such Newton was, diffusing far 

" His radiant beams; such Cotes had been, 

" This a bright comet; that a star, 

" Which glitter'd, and no more was seen. 

" Blush then, if thou hast, sense of shame, 
" Inglorious, ign'rant, impious slave ! 
" Who think'st this heavn-created frame 
*' Shall basely perish in the grave. 

" False as thou art, dar'st thou suggest 
" That thy Creator is unjust ? 
" Wilt thou the truth with Him contest, 
" Whose wisdom formed thee of the dust ? 



Say, ] 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 93 

" Say, doatard, hath He idly wrought, 
" Or are his works to be believ'd ? 
" Speak, is the whole creation nought ? 
" Mortal, is God or thou deceiv'd ? 

" Thy hardened spirit, convict at last, 
" Its damning error shall perceive, 
" Speechless shall hear its sentence past, 
" Condemned to tremble and believe. 

" But thou in reason's sober light 
" Death clad with terror can'st survey, 
" And from the foul and ghastly sight 
" Derive the pure and moral lay. 

" Go on, sweet Nymph, and when thy Muse 
" Visits the dark and dreary tomb, 
" Bright-rob'd Religion shall diffuse 
" Her radiance, and dispel the gloom. 

" And when the necessary day 

" Shall call thee to thy saving God, 

" Secure thou'lt chuse that better way, 

" Which Conscience points and SaiDts have trode. 

" So 



94 MEMOIRS OF 

" So shall thy soul at length forsake 
" The fairest form e'er soul receiv'd, 
" Of those rich blessings to partake, 
" Which eye ne'er saw, nor heart conceiv'd. 

" There, 'midst the full angelic throng, 
" Praise Him, who those rich blessings gave, 
" There shall resume the grateful song, 
" A joyful victor o'er the grave." 

This excursion to York was indeed a relaxation, but not alto- 
gether of a sort, that either suited my case, or accorded with my 
taste. Certain it is I had for a time impaired my health by too 
much application and the over-abstemious habits I imposed upon 
myself during my last year at college, but tranquillity not dissipa- 
tion, or what is called amusement, was the restorative I most need- 
ed. The allurements of public assemblies and the society of those, 
who resort to them, form so great a contrast to the occupations of a 
student, that instead of being enlivened by the change, I felt a 
lassitude of mind, that put me out of humour with myself, and 
damped that ardent spirit of acquirement, which in my nature 
seemed to have been its ruling passion. Extremes of any sort are 
dangerous to youthful minds, and should be studiously avoided. 
The termination of our visit to York, and the prospect of returning 
to college were welcomed by me most cordially. I had brought no 

books 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 95 

books with me to York, and of course had nothing to call oft* my 
mind from the listless idle style, in which I dangled away my time, 
amusing myself only now and then with my pen, because my fancy 
would not be totally unemployed; sometimes, as I have before 
related, imitating Spenser's style, and at other times composing 
short elegies after the manner of Hammond ; for this, when I was 
reprimanded by the same judicious monitress, who rallied me out 
of my imitations of the stanzas of The Fairy Queen, I promised 
her I would write no more love elegies, and took leave of Hammond 
with the following lines, written almost extempore — 

" When wise men love they love to folly, 
When blockheads love they're melancholy, 
When coxcombs love, they love for fashion, 
And quaintly call it the belle passion. 



" Old bachelors, who wear the willow, 
" May dream of love and hug the pillow, 
" Whilst love, in poet's fancy rhyming, 
" Sets all the bells of folly chiming. 

" But women, charming women, prove 
" The sweet varieties of love, 
" They can love all, but none too dearly, 
" Their husbands too, but not sincerely. 

" They'll 



96 MEMOIRS OF 

" They'll love a thing, whose outward shape 
" Marks him twin brother to an ape; 
" They'll take a miser for his riches, 
" And wed a beggar without breeches. 

" Marry, as if in love with ruin, 
" A gamester to their sure undoing, 
" A drunkard raving, swearing, storming, 
" For the dear pleasure of reforming. 

" They'll wed a lord, whose breath shall falter 

" Whilst he is crawling from the altar: 

" What is there women will not do, 

" When they love man and money too ?" 

These and numerous trifles of the like sort, not worth recording, 
amused my vacant hours at York, but when I returned home, I 
made a very short stay and hastened to college, where I was soon 
invited to the master's lodge by Doctor Smith, who was pleased to 
honour me with his approbation of my past exertions, and impart- 
ed to me a new arrangement, that he and the seniors had deter- 
mined upon for annulling so much of the existing statutes as re- 
stricted all Bachelors of Arts, except those of the third year's 
standing, from offering themselves candidates for fellowships: when 
he had signified this to me, he kindly added, that as I should be 

in 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 97 

hi the second year of my degree at the next election, he recom- 
mended it to me by all means to present myself for examination, 
and to take my chance. This was a communication so flattering, 
that I knew not how to shape the answer, which he seemed to 
expect from me; I clearly saw that his meaning was to bring me 
into the society a year before any one had been elected since the 
statutes were in existence ; I knew that by my election there must 
be an exclusion of some candidate of the year above me, who had 
only a single chance, whereas I had a double one ; in the mean 
time my circumstances were such as not to want the emoluments of 
a fellowship, and my age such as might well admit of a postpone- 
ment. These were my reflections at the time, and I felt the force 
of them, but the regulation was gone forth, and there were others 
of my own year, who had announced their resolution of coming 
forward as candidates at the time of the election. There was no 
part therefore for me to take but to prepare myself for the examina- 
tion, and expect the result. To this I looked forward with much 
more terror and alarm, than to all I had experienced in the schools 
and theatre, for I not only stood in awe of the master of Trinity, as 
being the deepest mathematician of his time, but as I had reason 
to believe he had been led to lay open the election in some degree 
on my account, I apprehended he would never suffer his partiality 
to single me out to the exclusion of any other without strict scru- 
tiny into my pretensions, and as I had obtained a high honour 
when I took r^y degree, I greatly feared he might, expect too 
much, and meet with disappointment. 

o Under 



98 MEMOIRS OF 

Under these impressions, whilst I was preparing to resume my 
studies with increased attention, and repair the time not profitably 
past of late, I received a summons, which opened to me a new 
scene of life. I was called for by Lord Halifax to assume the 
situation of his private confidential secretary : it was considered 
by my family and the friends and advisers of my family, as an 
offer, upon which there could be no hesitation. They took the 
question as it struck them in their view of it, they could not look 
into futurity, neither could they take a perfect estimate either of 
my fitness for the situation held out to me, or of the eventual 
value of the situation, from which I was about to be displaced. 
What the prosecution of my studies might have led me to in that 
line of life, to which I had directed my attention, and fixed my 
attachment, is a matter of speculation and conjecture; what I 
might have avoided is now become matter of experience, and I 
can only say that had certain passages of my past life been then 
stated to me as probabilities to occur, I would have stuck to my 
college, and endeavoured to have trodden in the steps of my an- 
cestors. 

I was not fitted for dependence ; my nature was repugnant to 
it; I was most unfortunately formed with feelings, that could ill 
endure the assumed importance of some, or submit to take advan- 
tage of the weakness of others. I had ambition enough, and it 
may be more than enough; but it was the ambition of working 
out my own way by the labours of my mind, am£ raising to my- 
self a character upon a foundation of my own laying I certainly 

do 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 99 

do not offend against truth when I say I had an ardent wish to 
earn a name in literature : I had studied books ; I had not studied 
men, and perhaps I was too much disposed to measure my respect 
for their characters by the standard of their talents. I had no 
acquaintance with the noble Lord, who now invited me to share 
his confidence, and receive my destiny from his hands. My good 
father did what was perfectly natural for a father to do in the 
like circumstances, he availed himself of the opportunity for 
placing me under the patronage of one of the most figuring and 
rising men of his time. There was something extremely brilliant 
and more than commonly engaging in the person, manners and 
address of the Earl of Halifax. He had been educated at Eton, 
and came with the reputation of a good scholar to Trinity College, 
where he established himself in the good opinion of the whole 
society, not only by his orderly and regular conduct, but in a very 
distinguished manner by the attention which he paid to his studies, 
and the proofs he gave in his public exercises of his classical ac- 
quirements. He was certainly, when compared with men of his 
condition, to be distinguished as a scholar much above the com- 
mon mark : he quoted well and copiously from the best authors, 
chiefly Horace; he was very fond of English poetry, and recited it 
very emphatically after the manner of Quin, who had been his 
master in that art : he had a partiality for Prior, which he seemed 
to inherit from the celebrated Lord Halifax, and would rehearse 
long passages from his Solomon, and Henry and Emma, with the 
whole of his verses, beginning with Sincere oh tell me — and these 

o 2 he 



100 MEMOIRS OF 

he would set off with a great display of action, and in a style of 
declamation more than sufficiently theatrical. He was married to 
a virtuous and exemplary lady, who brought him a considerable 
fortune, and from whom he took the name of Dunk, and was 
made a freeman of London to entitle him to many in conformity 
to the conditions of her father's will. His family, when I came 
to him, consisted of this lady, with whom he lived in great 
domestic harmony, and three daughters; there was an elderly cler- 
gyman of the name of Crane, an inmate also, who had been his 
tutor, and to whom he was most entirely attached. A better guide 
and a more faithful counsellor he could not have, for among-st 
all the men it has been my chance to know, I do not think I have 
known a calmer, wiser, more right-headed man; in the ways of 
the world, the politics of the time and the characters of those, 
who were in the public management and responsibility of affairs, 
Doctor Crane was incomparably the best steersman, that his pupil 
could take his course from, and so long as he submitted to his 
temperate guidance he could hardly go astray. The opinions of 
Doctor Crane were upon all points decisive, because in the first 
place they were always withheld till extorted from him by appeal, 
and secondly, because they never failed to carry home conviction 
of the prudence and sound judgment they were founded upon. 

This was the state of the family to which I was now introduced. 
In the Lord of the house I contemplated a man regular in his duties, 
temperate in his habits, and a strict observer of decorum: in the 
lady a woman, in whom no fault or even foible could be discovered, 

mild, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 101 

mild, prudent, unpretending : in the tutor a character not easy to 
develope, or rightly and correctly to appretiate, for whilst his qua- 
lities commanded respect, the dryness of his external repulsed fami- 
liarity ; in short I set him down as a man of a clear head and a 
cold heart : the daughters were children of the nursery. 

I went to town attended by a steady and intelligent servant 
of my father's ; this person, Anthony Fletcher by name, who then 
wore a livery, has since, by a series of good conduct and good for- 
tune, established himself in an affluent and creditable situation 
at Bath, where he still lives in a very advanced age in the Crescent, 
well known and universally respected. Lord Halifax's house was 
in Grosvenor-Square, but I found lodgings taken for me by his 
order in Downing-Street, for the purpose, as I understood, of my 
being near Mr. John Pownall, then acting secretary to the Board 
of Trade, at which it was Lord Halifax's office to preside. This 
gentleman was to give me the necessary instructions for my obtain- 
ing some insight into the nature of the business, likely to devolve 
upon me. My location was certainly very well pitched for those 
communications, for Mr. Pownall lodged and boarded at a house 
in the same street, and with him I was to mess when not invited 
out. 

The morning after my arrival I waited on this gentleman at his 
office in Whitehall, and was received by him with all possible po- 
liteness, but in a style of such cercinory and form as I was little 
used to, and not much delighted with. How many young men at 
my time of life would have embraced this tuation with rapture ! 

The 



102 MEMOIRS OF 

The whole town indeed was before me, but it had not for me either 
friend or relation, to whom I could resort for comfort or for coun- 
sel. With a head filled with Greek and Latin, and a heart left be- 
hind me in my college, I was completely out of my element. I 
saw myself unlike the people about me, and was embarrassed in 
circles, which according to the manners of those days were not to 
be approached without a set of ceremonies and manoeuvres, not 
very pleasant to perform, and, when awkwardly performed, not very 
edifying to behold, In these graces Lord Halifax was a model ; 
his address was noble and impressive ; he could never be mistaken 
for less than he was, whilst his official Secretary Pownall, who egre- 
giously over-acted his imitations of him, could as little be mistaken 
for more than he was. In the world, which I now belonged to, I 
heard very little, except now and then a quotation from Lord Ha- 
lifax, that in any degree interested me ; there were talkers however, 
who would take possession of a subject as a highwayman does of a 
purse, without knowing what it contained, or caring whom it be- 
longed to : man} r of these gentlemen had doubtless found that igno- 
rance had been no obstacle to their advancement, and now they 
seemed resolved it should be no bar to their assurance. I found 
there was a polite as well as a political glossary, which involved 
mysteries little less obscure than those, which are couched under 
the hierogliphics of Egypt, and I perceived that whosoever had 
the ready use and apt application of those pass-words, was by right 
looked up to as the best bred ajid best informed man in the com- 
pany : when a single word can comprise the matter of a whole 

volume, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 103 

volume, those worthy gentlemen have a very sufficient plea for not 
Avasting their time upon reading. I have lived long enough to 
witness such amazing feats performed by impudence, that I much 
wonder why modest men will allow themselves to be found in socie- 
ties, where they are condemned to be annoyed by talkers, who 
turn all things upside down, whilst they are not permitted to utter 
that, which would set them right. 

When it was my chance to dine at our boarding-house table with 
the aforementioned sub-secretary, I contemplated with surprise the 
importance of his air, and the dignity that seemed attached to his 
official situation. The good woman of the house, who was at once 
our provider and our president, regularly addressed him by the 
name of statesman, and in her distribution of the joint shewed 
something more than an impartial attention to his plate. If he 
knew any state-secrets, I will do him the justice to say that he 
never disclosed them; and if he talked with ministers and great 
nobles as he talked of them, I will venture to say he was extremely 
familiar with them ; and I cannot doubt but that this was the case; 
for if he was thus high with his equals, it surely behoved him to be 
much higher with those who but for such self-swelling altitudes 
might stand a chance to pass for his superiors. He had a brother 
in the guards, a very amiable man, and with him I formed a 
friendship. Having been told to inform myself about the colonies, 
and shewn some folio books of formidable contents, I began more 
meo with the discoverers of America, and proceeded to 1 ravel 
through a mass of voyages, which furnished here and there some 

plots 



104 MEMOIRS OF 

plots for tragedies, dumb shows and dances, as they have since 
done, but in point of information applicable to the then-existing 
state of the colonies, were most discouragingly meager, and most 
oppressively tedious in communicating nothing. I got a summary 
but sufficient insight into the constitutions of the respective pro- 
vinces, for what was worth knowing was soon learnt, and when I 
found that my whole employment in Grosvenor-Square consisted in 
copying a few private letters to governors and civil officers abroad, 
I applied my thoughts to other subjects, and particularly to the 
approaching election at my college ; still London lodgings and 
London hours were not quite so well adapted to studj* as I could 
have wished, though I changed my situation for the better when I 
removed to an apartment, which was taken for me in Mount-Street, 
within a very short walk of Lord Halifax's house, where I attended 
for his commands every morning, and dined twice or thrice in the 
week. One day he took me with him to Newcastle House, in Lin- 
coln's Inn Fields, for the purpose of presenting me to the duke, 
then prime minister: his lordship was admitted without delay; I 
waited two hours for my audience, and was then dismissed in two 
minutes, whilst his grace, stript to his shirt with his sleeves rolled 
up to his elbows, was washing his hands. 

The recess took place at the usual time, when Lord Halifax left 
town and went to Horton in Northamptonshire; I accompanied 
him thither, and from thence went to Cambridge; he seemed inte- 
rested in my undertaking, and offered me letters of recommenda- 
tion, which with due acknowledgments I declined. On my arrival 

I found 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 105 

I found Doctor Richard Bentley had come from his living of Nail- 
stone in Leicestershire, purposely to support my cause ; the vice- 
master also welcomed me with his accustomed cordiality, and I 
found the candidates of both years had turned out strong for the 
contest. There were six vacancies, and six candidates of the year 
above me; of these Spencer Madan, now Bishop of Peterborough, 
was as senior Westminster secure of his election, and such was his 
merit, independent of any other claim, that it would have been 
impossible to pass him over. He was a young man of elegant ac- 
complishments, and with the recommendation of a very interesting 
person and address, had derived from the Cowpers, of which fa- 
mily his mother was, no small proportion of hereditary taste and 
talent ; he was a good classical scholar, composed excellent decla- 
mations in the Ciceronian style, which he set off with all the grace 
of recitation and voice, that can well be conceived : he had a great 
passion for music, sung well, and read in chapel to the admiration 
of every one. I have passed many happy hours with him in the 
morning of our lives, and I hope he will enjoy the evening of his 
days in comfort and tranquillity, having chosen that better lot, 
which has brought him into harbour, whilst I, who lost it, am left 
out at sea. 

The senior Westminster of my year, and joint candidate with 
me at this time, was John Higgs, now Rector of Grandisburgh in 
Suffolk, and a senior fellow of Trinity College ; a man, who, when 
I last visited him, enjoyed all the vigour of mind and body in a 
green old age, the result of good humour, and the reward of teni- 

p * perance. 



106 MEMOIRS OF 

perance. We have spun out mutually a long measure of uninter- 
rupted friendship, he in peace throughout, and I at times in per- 
plexity ; and if I survive to complete these memoirs, and he to read 
this page, I desire he will receive it as a testimony of my unaltered 
regard for him through life, and the bequest of my last good wishes 
at the close of it. 

It would hardly be excusable in me to detail a process, that 
takes place every year, but that in this instance the novelty of our 
case made it matter of very general attention. When the day of 
examination came we went our rounds to the electing seniors ; in 
some instances by one at a time, in others by parties of three or 
four ; it was no trifling scrutiny we had to undergo, and here and 
there pretty severely exacted, particularly, as I well remember, by 
Doctor Charles Mason, a man of curious knowledge in the philo- 
sophy of mechanics and a deep mathematician ; he was a true 
modern Diogenes in manners and apparel, coarse and slovenly to 
excess in both ; the witty made a butt of him, but the scientific 
caressed him; he could ornament a subject at the same time that 
he disgusted and disgraced society. I remember when he came 
one day to dinner in the college hall, dirty as a blacksmith from 
his forge, upon his being questioned on his appearance, he replied 
— that he had been turning — then I wish, said the other, when you 
was about it, friend Charles, you had turned your shirt. This phi- 
losopher, as I was prepared to believe, decidedly opposed my 
election. He gave us a good dose of dry mathematics, and then 
put an Aristophanes before us, which he opened at a venture, and 

bade 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 107 

bade us give the sense of it. A very worthy candidate of my year 
declined having any thing to do with it, yet Mason gave his vote 
for that gentleman, and against me, who took his leavings. Doctor 
Samuel Hooper gave us a liberal and well chosen examination in 
the more familiar classics; that indeed was a man, in whom nothing 
could be found but what was gentle and engaging, whom suavity 
of temper and the charms of manners made dear to all that knew 
him ; he died and was buried in the chapel of his college, where 
a marble tablet, erected to his memory, cannot fail to awaken the 
sensibility of all, who like me, were acquainted with his virtues. 

The last, whom in order of our visits we resorted to, was the 
master; he called us to him one by one according to our standings, 
and of course it fell to me as junior candidate to wait till each had 
been examined in his turn. When in obedience to his summons I 
attended upon him, he was sitting, not in the room where my 
grandfather had his library, but in a chamber up stairs, encom- 
passed with large folding screens, and over a great fire, though 
the weather was then uncommonly warm : he began by requiring of 
me an account of the whole course and progress of my studies in 
the several branches of philosophy, so called in the general, and as 
I proceeded in my detail of what I had read, he sifted me with 
questions of such a sort as convinced me he was determined to take 
nothing upon trust; when he had held me a considerable time under 
this examination, I expected he would have dismissed me, but on 
the contrary he proceeded in the like general terms to demand of 
me an account of what I had been reading before I had applied 

p 2 myself 



108 MEMOIRS OF 

to academical studies, and when I had acquitted myself of this 
question as briefly as I could, and I hope as modestly as became 
me in presence of a man so learned, he bade me give him a sum- 
mary account of the several great empires of the ancient world, the 
periods when they flourished, their extent when at the summit of 
their power, the causes of their declension and dates of their extinc- 
tion. When summoned to give answer to so wide a question, I 
can only say it was well for me I had worked so hard upon my 
scheme of General History, which I have before made mention of, 
and which, though not complete in all the points of his enquiry, 
supplied me with materials for such a detail, as seemed to give 
him more than tolerable satisfaction. This process being over, he 
gave me a sheet of paper written through in Greek with his own 
hand, which he ordered me to turn either into Latin or English, 
and I was shewn into a room, containing nothing but a table fur- 
nished with materials for writing, and one chair, and I was required 
to use dispatch. The passage was maliciously enough selected in 
point of construction, and also of character, for he had scrawled it 
out in a puzzling kind of hand with abbreviations of his own de- 
vising : it related to the arrangement of an army for battle, and 
I believe might be taken from Polybius, an author I had then never 
read. When I had given in my translation in Latin, I was remand- 
ed to the empty chamber with a subject for Latin prose and ano- 
ther for Latin verse, and again required to dispatch them in the 
manner of an impromptu. The chamber, into which I was shut 
for the performance of these hasty productions, was the very room, 

dismantled 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 109 

dismantled of the bed, in which I was born. The train of ideas it 
revived in my mind were not inappositely woven into the verses I 
gave in, and with this task my examination concluded. 

Doctor Smith, who so worthily succeeded to the mastership of 
Trinity on my grandfathers decease, was unquestionably one of the 
most learned men of his time, as his works, especially his System of 
Optics, effectually demonstrate. He led the life of a student, ab- 
stemious and recluse, his family consisting of a sister, advanced in 
years, and unmarried like himself, together with a niece, who in 
the course of her residence there was married to a fellow of the 
college. He was a man, of whom it might be said — Philosophy 
had marked him for her own ; of a thin spare habit, a nose promi- 
nently aquiline, and an eye penetrating as that of the bird, the 
semblance of whose beak marked the character of his face : the 
tone of his voice was shrill and nasal, and his manner of speaking 
such as denoted forethought and deliberation. How deep a theo- 
rist he was in harmony his treatise will evince ; of mere melody he 
was indignantly neglectful, and could not reconcile his ear to the 
harpsichord, till by a construction of his own he had divided the 
halftones into their proper flats and sharps. Those who figured to 
themselves a Diogenes in Mason, might have fancied they beheld 
an Aristotle in Smith, who, had he lived in the age and fallen 
within the eye of the great designer of The School of Athens, might 
have left his image there without discrediting the groupe. 

The next day the election was announced, and I was chosen 
together with Mr. John Orde, now one of the masters in Chancery, 

who 



110 MEMOIRS OF 

who was of the same year with myself, and next to me upon the 
list of Wranglers. This gentleman had also gained the prize ad- 
judged to him for his Latin declamation ; for his private worthi- 
ness he was universally esteemed, and for his public merits deser- 
vedly rewarded. By our election two candidates of the year above 
us for ever lost their chance; the one of these a Mr. Briggs, the 
other Mr. Penneck, a name well known and a character much- 
esteemed : he filled a situation in the British Museum with great 
respectability, was a very amiable worthy man, highly valued by 
his friends when living, and much lamented after death. His 
disappointment on this occasion was very generally regretted, and 
I think I can answer for the feelings of Mr. Orde as confidently as 
for my own. 

When I waited upon the electing seniors to return my thanks, 
of course I did not omit to pay my compliments to Doctor Mason. 
— " You owe me no compliment, he replied, for I tell you plainly 
" I opposed your election, not because I have any personal objec- 
" tion to you, but because I am no friend to innovations, and 
" think it hard upon the excluded candidates to be subjected on a 
" sudden to a regulation, which according to my calculation gives 
" you two chances to their one, and takes away, as it has proved, 
" even that one. But you are in ; so there's an end of it, and I 
" give you joy." 

Having staid as long in college as in gratitude and propriety I 
conceived it right to stay, I went home to Stanwick, and from 
thence paid my duty in a short visit to Lord Halifax. This was 

certainly 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. m 

certainly a moment, of which I could have availed myself for re- 
turning into the line of life, which I had stept out of, and as nei- 
ther now, nor in any day of my long attendance upon Lord Halifax, 
there ever was an hour, when my father would not have lent a ready 
ear to my appeal, the reasons, that prevailed with me for persisting, 
were not dictated by him. In the mean time the life I led in town 
during the first years of my attendance was almost as much seques- 
tered from the world, as if I had been resident in college: in my 
lodging in Mount Street I had stocked myself with my own books, 
some of my father's, and those, which Doctor Richard Bentley had 
bestowed upon me ; I sought no company, nor pushed for any new 
connexions amongst those, whom I occasionally met in Grosvcnor- 
Square; one or two of my fellow collegiates now and then looked 
in upon me, and about this time I made my first small offering to 
the press, following the steps of Gray with another church-yard 
elegy, written on Saint Mark's eve, when according to rural tradi- 
tion the ghosts of those, who are to die within the year ensuing, 
are seen to walk at midnight across the church-yard. I believe the 
public were very little interested by my plaintive ditty, and Mr. 
Dodsley, who was publisher, as little profited. I had written it 
at Stan wick in one of my college vacations, some time before I 
belonged to Lord Halifax, and had affixed to my title page the 
following motto with which I sent it into the world — 

" Aiog Be TOt kyyp.Xog £~|ju, 

" ( 0q veu, avevSev euu, [i.e<ycc HVjSeTai vj5* ekexiper 

" AXXoc tv (tvitiv i%£ (ppesi, [xvj<$£ <T6 XvjQvi 

" Alpena £uV kv <re {jifXi^wv v(pvog a.v\w" 

I had 



112 MEMOIRS OF 

I had made my stay at Horton as short as I could with propriety, 
being impatient to avail myself of every day that I could pass in 
the society of my family. With them I was happy ; in their com- 
pany I enjoyed those tranquil and delicious hours, which were en- 
deared to me still more by the contrast of what I suffered when in 
absence from them. 

With all these sensations within me, these filial feelings and 
family attachment, I hardly need confess, that, however time and 
experience may have changed my taste or capacity for public life, 
certain it is that I was not then fitted for it, nor had any of those 
worldly qualities and accommodations in my; nature, which are 
sure to push their possessors into notice, and form what may be 
called the very nidus of good fortune. A man, who is gifted with 
these lucky talents, is armed with hands, as a ship with grappling 
irons, ready to catch hold of, and make himself fast to every thing 
he comes in contact with ; and such a man, with all these properties 
of adhesion, has also the property, like the Polipus, of a most 
miraculous and convenient indivisibility ; cut off his hold, nay, cut 
him how you will, he is still a Polipus, whole and entire. Men of 
this sort shall work their way out of their obscurity like cockroaches 
out of the hold of a ship, and crawl into notice, nay, even into 
king's palaces, as the frogs did into Pharoah's : the happy faculty 
of noting times and seasons, and a lucky promptitude to avail 
themselves of moments with address and boldness, are alone such 
all-sufficient requisites, such marketable stores of worldly know- 
ledge, that although the minds of those, who own them, shall be 

as 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 11.3 

as to all the liberal sciences a rasa tabula, yet knowing these things 
needful to be known, let their difficulties and distresses be what 
they may, though the storm of adversity threatens to overwhelm 
them, they are in a life-boat, buoyed up by corks, and cannot 
sink. These are the stray children, turned loose upon the world, 
Avhom fortune in her charity takes charge of, and for whose guidance 
in the bye-ways and cross-roads of their pilgrimage she sets up 
fairy finger-posts, discoverable by them, whose eyes are near the 
ground, but unperceived by such, whose looks are raised above it. 

In a nation, like this, where all ranks and degrees are laid open 
to enterprize, merit or good fortune, it is fit, right and natural that 
sudden elevations should occur and be encouraged. It is a spur 
to industry, and incites to emulation and laudable ambition. Whilst 
it leads to these good consequences, it must also tend to others of 
a different sort. In all communities so constituted there will be a 
secret market for cunning, as well as a fair emporium for honesty, 
and a vast body of men, who can't support themselves without 
labour of some sort, and won't live by the labour of their hands, 

must contrive to live by their wits 

Honest men 
Arc the soft easy cushions, on which knaves 
Repose and fatten — 

But there are more than these — Vain men will have their flat- 
terers, rich men their followers, and powerful men their dependants. 
A great man in office is like a great whale in the ocean ; there will 
be a sword-fish and a thresher, a Junius and a John Wilkes, ever 

q in 



114 MEMOIRS OF 

in his wake and arming to attack him : These are the vext spirits of 
the deep, who trouble the waters, turning them up from the very 
bottom** that they may emerge from their mud, and float upon the 
surface of the billows in foam of their making. 

The abstract history of some of these gentry is curious — when 
they have made a wreck of their own reputation, they assault and 
tear in pieces the reputations of others; they defame man and 
blaspheme God ; they are punished for their enormities ; this makes 
them martyrs ; martyrdom makes them popular, they are crowned 
with praises, honours and emoluments, and they leave the world 
in admiration of their talents, before they have tasted the contempt 
which they deserve. 

But whilst these men may be said to fight their way into conse- 
quence, and so long as they can but live in notice are content to 
live in trouble, there is a vast majority of easy, unambitious, cour- 
teous humble servants, whose unoffending vanity aspires no higher 
than like Samson's bees to make honey in the bowels of a lion, 
and fatten on the offal of a rich man's superfluities. They ask no 
more of fortune than to float, like the horse dung with the apples, 
and enjoy the credit of good company as they travel down the 
smooth and easy stream of life. For these there is a vast demand, 
and their talents are as various as the uses the}- are put to. Every 
great, rich and consequential man, who has not the wisdom to hold 
his tongue, must enjoy his privilege of talking, and there must be 
dull fellows to listen to him ; again, if, by talking about what he 
does not understand, he gets into embarrassments, there must be 

clever 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 115 

clever fellows to help him out of them : when he would be merry, 
there must be witty rogues to make him laugh; when he would be 
sorrowful, there must be sad rogues to sigh and groan and make 
long faces : as a great man must be never in the wrong, there must 
be hardy rascals, who will swear he is always in the right ; as he 
must never show fear, of course he must never see danger ; and as 
his courage must at no time sink, there must be friends at all times 
ceady to prevent its being tried. 

A great man is entitled to his relaxations ; he, who labours for 
the public, must recreate his spirit with his private friends : then 
it is that the happy moments, the mollia tempora are to be found, 
which the adept in the art of rising knows so well how to make his 
use of. Of opportunities like these I have had my share ; I never 
turned them to my own advantage ; if at any time I undertook a 
small solicitation, or obtruded a request, it was for some humble 
client, Avho told a melancholy tale, and could advance no nearer 
to the principal than by making suit to me ; in the mean time I 
saw many a favour wrested by importunity out of that course, 
which I had reason to expect they would have taken : I never 
remonstrated, and a very slight apology sufficed for me. These 
negative merits I may fairly claim without offence against the 
modesty of truth ; I was assiduous in discharging all the duties of 
my small employ, and faithfully attached to my employer : if he 
had no call upon me for more or greater services than any man of 
the commonest capacity could have performed, it was because 
occasions did not occur ; I had not the fault of neglecting what I 

q 2 had 



116 MEMOIRS OF 

had to do, nor the presumption of dictating in any single instance 
what should be done. 

Lord Halifax wrote all his own dispatches, and with reason, 
for he wrote well ; but I am tempted to record one opportunity, 
that was thrown in my way by the candour of Mr. Charles Towns- 
hend, whilst he was passing a few days at Horton ; amongst a 
variety of subjects, which his active imagination was for ever start- 
ing, something had recurred to his recollection of an enigmatical 
sort, that he wished to have the solution of, and could not strike 
upon it ; it was only to be done by a geometrical process, which I 
was fortunate enough to hit upon; I worked it as a problem and 
gave him my solution in writing; I believe it pleased him, but I am 
very sure that his good nature was glad of the opportunity to say 
flattering things to a diffident young man, who said very little for 
himself, and further to do me grace he was pleased to put into my 
hands a very long and elaborate report of his own drawing up, for 
he was then one of the Lords of Trade, and this he condescend- 
ed to desire I would carefully revise and give him my remarks with- 
out reserve. How highly I was gratified by this condescension in 
a man of his extraordinary and superior genius, I need not say, nor 
how well, or how ill, I executed my commission ; I did it to the 
best of my abilities ; there was much to admire, and something 
here and there in his paper to warrant a remark ; if his compli- 
ments were sincere, I succeeded, and shortly after I had proofs, that 
put his kind opinion of me out of doubt. 

One morning in conversation tete-a-tete, he said he recollected 

a quotation 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 117 

a quotation he had chanced upon in an anonymous author, who 
maintained opinions of a very impious sort. — The passage he re- 
peated is as follows — 

Post mortem nihil est, ipsaq; mors nihil — 
And he asked me if I knew where those words were to be found : I 
recollected them to be in one of the tragedies of Seneca, I believed 
it was that of the Troades, which I had lately chanced upon 
amongst my grandfather's books : as soon as I had access to these, 
I turned to the passage, and according to his desire copied and 
inclosed it to him. Tis found in the second act of the Troades, 
and as it is a curious extract, and short withal, I have inserted it, 
together with the stanzas written at the time and transmitted with 
it, which, though not very closely translated, I have transcribed 
verbatim as I find them. 

Verum est, an timidos fabula decipit 

Umbras corporibus vivere conditis ? 

Cum conjux oculis impomit mqnvm, 

Supremusq ; dies solibus obstitit, 

Et tristes cineres urna coercuit, 

Non prodest animam tradere funeri, 

Sed restat miseris vivere longius, 

An toti morimur, nullaq ; pars manet 

Nostri, cum profugo spiritus halitu 

Immistus nebulis cessit in aera, 

Et nudum tetigit subdita fax latus—? 
Quidquidsol oriens, quidquid et occidens 

Novit, 



118 MEMOIRS OF 

Novit, ccerultis oceanus fretis 
Quidquid vel veniens velfugiens lavat, 
Mtas pegaseo corripiet gradu. 
Quo bissena volant sidera turbine. 
Quo cursu properat secula volvere 
Astrorum dominus, quo properat modo 
Obliquis Hecate currere fiexubus, 
Hoc omnes petimus fata ; nee amplius 
Juratos Superis qui tetigit lacus 
Usquam est : ut calidis fumus ab ignibus 
Vanescit, spatium per breve sordidus, 
Ut nubes gravidas, quas modo vidimus, 
Arctoi Borece disjicit impetus, 
Sic hie, quo regimur, spiritus effiuet. 
Post mortem nihil est, ipsaq ; mors nihil; 
Velocis spatii meta novissima. 
Spem ponant avidi, solliciti metum ! 
Quairis quo jaceas post obitum loco — f 
Quo non natajacent. 
Tempus nos avidum devorat, et chaos : 
Mors individua est ; noxia corpori, 
Nee parcens anima. Tcenara, et aspero 
Regnum sub domino, limen et obsidens 
Cusios non facili Cerberus ostio, 
Rumores vacui, verbaq ; inania, 
Et par sollicito fabula somnio. 



Charms 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 119 

Chorus of Trojan Women. 
" Is it a truth, or fiction all, 

" Which only cowards trust, 
" Shall the soul live beyond the grave, 

" Or mingle with our dust ? 

" When the last gleam of parting day 

" Our struggling sight hath blest, 
" And in the pale array of death 

" Our clay-cold limbs are drest, 

" Did the kind friend, who clos'd our eyes, 

" Speak peace to us in vain ? 
" Is there no peace, and have we died 

" To live and weep again ? 

" Or sigh'd we then our souls away, 

" And was that sigh our last, 
" Or e'er upon the flaming pile 

" Our bare remains were cast ? 

" All the sun sees, the ocean laves, 

" Kingdoms and kings shall fall, 
" Nature and nature's works shall cease, 

" And time be lord of all. 

Swift 



120 MEMOIRS OF 

" Swift as the monarch of the skies 
" Impels the rolling year, 

" Swift as the gliding orb of night 
" Pursues her prone career, 

" So swift, so sure we all descend 
" Down life's continual tide, 

" 'Till in the void of fate profound 
" We sink with worlds beside. 

" As in the flame's resistless glare 
" Th' envelop'd smoke is lost, 

" Or as before the driving North 
" The scatter'd clouds are tost, 

" So this proud vapour shall expire, 
" This all-directing soul, 

" Nothing is after death ; you've run 
" Your race and reach'd the goal. 

" Dare not to wish, nor dread to meet 
" A life beyond the grave ; 

" You'll meet no other life than now 
" The unborn ages have. 



Time 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 121 

" Time whelms us in the vast Inane, 

" A gulph without a shore ; 
" Death gives th' exterminating blow, 

" We fall to rise no more. 

" Hell, and its triple-headed guard, 

" And Lethe's fabled stream, 
" Are tales that lying gossips tell, 

" And moon-struck Sybils dream/' 

It was the good old custom of the Earl of Halifax to pass the 
Christmas at his family seat of Horton in great hospitality, and 
upon these occasions he never failed to be accompanied by parties 
of his friends and intimates from town ; the chief of these were the 
Lords Dupplin and Barrington, Mr. Charles Townshend, Mr. 
Francis Fane, Mr. James Oswald, Mr. Hans Stanley, Mr. Nar- 
bonne Berkeley, Lord Hillsborough, Mr. Dodington, Colonel James 
Johnstone, the husband of his sister Lady Charlotte, and Mr. 
Ambrose Isted of Ecton, near Northampton, his neighbour and 
constant visitor at those seasons : these, with the addition of Doctor 
Crane and the Reverend Mr. Spencer, an elderly clergyman, long 
attached to the family, formed a society highly respectable. I 
ever entertained a perfect and sincere regard for Lady Halifax ; 
her mild complacent character was to me far more engaging than 
the livelier spirits and more figuring talents of inan} r , who engrossed 
that attention, which she did not aspire to : she was uniform in her 

r kindness 



122 MEMOIRS OF 

kindness to me, and whilst she lived, I flatter myself I had a friend, 
who esteemed and understood me: when she died I had more 
reason to regret her loss than for myself alone. 

My father was still fixed in his residence at Stanwick, and there 
I ever found unvaried felicity, unabated affection. He had some 
excellent friends and many pleasant neighbours, with whom he 
lived upon the most agreeable terms, for in his house every body 
seemed to be happy ; his table was admirably managed by my 
mother, his cellars, servants, equipage in the best order, and with- 
out parade unbecoming of his profession, or unsuitable to his for- 
tune, no family could be better conducted ; and here I must in- 
dulge myself in dilating on the character of one of his best friends, 
and best of men, Ambrose Isted, Esq. of Ecton aforementioned. 
Through every scene of my life, from my childhood to the lamented 
event of his death, which happened whilst I was in Spain, he was 
invariably kind, indulgent and affectionate to me. I conceive there 
is not upon record one, who more perfectly fulfilled the true cha- 
racter of a country gentleman in all its most respectable duties and 
departments than did this exemplary person ; nor will his name be 
forgotten in Northamptonshire so long as the memory or tradition 
of good deeds shall circulate, or gratitude be considered as a tri- 
bute due to the benevolent. He was the pattern and very model 
of hospitality most worthy to be copied ; for his family and affairs 
were administered and conducted with such measured liberality, 
such correct and wise ceconomy, that the friend, who found nothing 
wanting, which could constitute his comforts, found nothing waste- 
fully 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 123 

fully superfluous to occasion his regret. Though Mr. Isted's estate 
was not large, yet by the process of enclosure, and above all by 
his prudent and well-ordered management, it was augmented with- 
out extortion, and left in excellent condition to his son and heir. 
The benefits he conferred upon his poorer neighbours were of a 
nature far superior to the common acts of almsgiving (though these 
were not omitted) for in all their difficulties and embarrassments, 
he was their counsellor and adviser, not merely in his capacity of 
acting justice of the peace, but also from his legal knowledge and 
experience, which were very considerable, and fully competent to 
all their uses ; by which numbers, who might else have fallen under 
the talons of country attornies, were saved from pillage and beg- 
gary. With this gentleman my father acted as justice, and was 
united in friendship and in party, and to him he resorted upon all 
occasions, where the opinion and advice of a judicious friend were 
wanted. Our families corresponded in the utmost harmony, and 
our interchange of visits was frequent and delightful. The house 
of Ecton was to me a second home, and the hospitable master of 
it a second father ; his gaiety of heart, his suavity of temper, the 
interest he took in giving pleasure to his guests, and the fund of 
information he possessed in the stores of a well-furnished memory 
and a lively animated genius, are ever fresh in my recollection, and 
I look back upon the days I have passed with him as some of the 
happiest in my life. For many years before his death, I saw this 
excellent man by intervals excruciated with a tormenting and in- 
curable disease, which laid too deep and undiscovcrable in his vi- 

r 2 tals 



124 MEMOIRS OF 

tals to admit of any other relief than laudanum in large doses 
could at times administer : nothing but a soul serene and piously 
resigned as his was, could have borne itself up against a visitation 
at once so agonizing and so hopeless ; a spirit however fortified by 
faith, and a conscience clear of reproach can effect great things, 
and my heroic friend through all his trials smiled in the midst of 
sufferings, and submitted unrepining to his fate. One of the last 
letters he lived to write I received in Spain : I saw it was the effort 
of an exhausted frame, a generous zeal to send one parting testi- 
mony of his affection to me, and being at that time myself ex- 
tremely ill, I was hardly in a capacity to dictate a reply. 

I was also at this time in habits of the most intimate friend- 
ship with two young men of my own age, sons of a worthy clergy- 
man in our neighbourhood, the Reverend Mr. Ekins. Jeffery the 
elder, now deceased, was Dean of Carlisle, and Rector of Mor- 
peth ; John the younger is yet living and Dean of Salisbury. Few 
men have been more fortunate in life than these brothers, fewer 
still have probably so well deserved their good success. With the 
elder of these my intimacy was the greatest ; the same passion for 
poetry possessed us both, the same attachment to the drama : our 
respective families indulged us in our propensities, and were mu- 
tually amused with our domestic exhibitions. My friend Jeffery 
was in my family, as I was in his, an inmate ever welcome ; his 
genius was quick and brilliant, his temper sweet, and his nature 
mild and gentle in the extreme: I loved him as a brother; we never 
had the slightest jar, nor can I recollect the moment in our lives, 

that 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 125 

that ever gave occasion of offence to either. Our destinations 
separated us in the more advanced period of our time ; his duties 
drew him to a distance from the scenes I was engaged in; his lot 
was prosperous and placid, and well for him it was, for he was not 
made to combat with the storms of life. In early youth, long be- 
fore he took orders, he composed a drama of an allegorical cast, 
which he entitled Florio, or The Pursuit of Happiness. There was a 
great deal of fancy in it, and I wrote a comment upon it almost as 
long as the drama itself, which I sent to him as a mark of my admi- 
ration of his genius, and my affection for his person. He also 
wrote a poem upon Dreams, which had great merit, but as I wished 
my friend to employ his talents upon subjects of a more elevated 
nature, I addressed some lines to him in the style of remonstrance, 
of Avhich I shall transcribe no more than the concluding stanza — 

" But thou, whose powers can wield a weightier theme. 



" Why waste one thought upon an empty dream ? 
" Why all this genius, all this art display'd 
" To paint a vapour and arrest a shade ? 
" Can fear-drawn shapes and visions of the night 
" Assail thy fancy, or deceive thy sight ? 
" Wilt thou to air-built palaces resort, 
" Where the sylphs flutter and the fairies sport. 
" No, let them sooth the love-enfeebled brain, 
" Thy Muse shall seize her harp and strike a loftier strain. " 
During the time I lived in this pleasing intercourse with the 

family 



126 MEMOIRS OF 

family of these worthy brothers, there was an ingenious friend and 
school fellow of their's pretty constantly resident with them, of the 
name of Arden, a young man very much to be loved for the ame- 
nity of his temper and the vivacity of his parts. He was the life 
and soul of our dramatic amusements, and had an energy of cha- 
racter, as well as a fund of humour, that enabled him to give its 
true force and expression to every part he assumed in our private 
exhibitions. And here let me not omit to mention a near relation, 
and once my most dear friend, Richard, son of the Reverend 
Doctor George Reynolds, and grandson of Bishop Reynolds, who 
married the daughter of Bishop Cumberland. This mild and ami- 
able young man had in early life so far attached himself to the Earl 
of Sandwich, as to accompany him to the Congress at Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, but being perfectly independant in his fortune and of an 
unambitious placid nature, he declined pursuing any further the 
unquiet track of public life, and sate down with his family at their 
house of Paxton in Huntingdonshire, to the possession of which he 
succeeded, and where he still resides. I am here speaking of the 
days of my intimacy with this gentleman, and I look back to them 
with none but grateful recollection ; in the course of these memoirs 
I shall have to speak of other days, that will recall sensations of 
another sort. 

If ever this once-valued friend shall be my reader, let me appeal 
to his candour for a fair interpretation of my feelings, when I can- 
not pass this period over without recalling to his memory and my 
own the name of his departed sister, who merited and possessed my 

best 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 12? 

best affections in their purest sense. The hospitable welcome 1 
always received from the parents of this amiable lady, and their 
encouraging politeness to me might have tempted one less respect- 
ful of her comforts, and less sensible of her superior pretensions, to 
have presumed upon their favor and made tender of his addresses ; 
but my precarious dependency and unsettled state of life, forbade 
such hopes, and I was silent. I now return to my narrative, in which 
I am prepared to speak both of others and myself no more than I 
know, or verily believe, to be truth. 

It was about this time I employed myself in collecting mate- 
rials from the History of India for the plan of a poem in heroic 
verse, many fragments of which I find amongst my old papers, 
which prove I had bestowed considerable labour on the work, and 
made some progress. Whether I found the plan could not be made 
to accord to my idea of the epic, or whether any other project 
called me off I cannot now recollect ; but at that time I had not 
attempted any thing professedly for the stage. I must however 
lament that it has lain by unlooked at for so great a length of time, 
as there have been intermediate periods of leisure when it would 
have been well worth my pains to have taken it up. It is now too 
late, and the only use I can apply it to is humbly to lay before the 
public a specimen, faithfully transcribed from that part of the poem, 
where the discoveries of the Portuguese are introduced. I might 
perhaps have selected passages less faulty, but I give it correctly 
as I find it, trusting that the candid reader will make allowances 
for that too florid style, which juvenile versifiers are so apt to in- 
dulge 



128 MEMOIRS OF 

dulge themselves in, whilst the fancy is too prurient and the judg- 
ment not mature. 

* * * 

Fragment. 
" Long time had Afric's interposing mound, 



" Stretching athwart the navigator's way, 

" Fenc'd the rich East, and sent th' adventurous bark 

" Despairing home, or whelm'd her in the waves. 

" Gama the first on bold discovery bent, 

" With prow still pointing to the further pole, 

" Skirted Caffraria till the welcome cape, 

" Thence call'd of Hope — but not to Asia's sons — 

" Spoke the long coast exhausted ; still 'twas hope, 

" Not victory ; nature in one effort foil'd, 

" Still kept the contest doubtful, and enrag'd, 

" Rous'd all the elements to war. Meanwhile, 

" As once the Titans with Saturnian Jove, 

" So he in happier hour and his bold crew 

" Undaunted conflict held : old Ocean storm'd, 

" Loud thunder rent the air, the leagued winds 

" Roar'd in his front, as if all Afric's Gods 

" With necromantic spells had charm'd the storm 

" To shake him from his course — in vain ; for Fate, 

" That grasp'd his helm with unrelenting hand, 

" Had register'd his triumph : through the breach 

" All Lusitania pour'd ; Arabia mourn'd, 

"And 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 129 

" And saw her spicy caravans return 
" Shorn of their wealth ; the Adriatic bride 
" Like a neglected beauty pin'd away ; 
" Europe, which by her hand of late receiv'd 
" India's rich fruits, from the deserted mart 
" Now turned aside and pluckt them as they grew. 
" A new-found world from out the waves arose. 
" Now SofTala, and all the swarming coast 
" Of fruitful Zanguebar, till where it meets 
" The sultry Line, pour'd forth their odorous stores. 
" The thirsty West drank deep the luscious draught, 
" And reel'd with luxury ; Emmanuel's throne 
" Blaz'd with barbaric gems ; aloft he sate 
" Encanopied with gold, and circled round 
" With warriors and with chiefs in Eastern pomp 
" Resplendent with their spoils. Close in the rear 
" Of conquest march'd the motley papal host, 
" Monks of all colours, brotherhoods and names : 
" Frowning they rear'd the cross ; th' affrighted tribes 
" Look'd up aghast, and whilst the cannon's mouth 
" Thunder'd obedience, dropt th' unwilling knee 
" In trembling adoration of a God, 
" Whom, as by nature tutor'd, in his works 
" They saw, and only in his mercy knew. 
" But creeds, impos'd by terror, can ensure 

s " No 



130 MEMOIRS OF 

" No fixt allegiance, but are strait dismiss'd 

" From the vext conscience, when the sword is sheath'd. 

" Now when the barrier, that so long had stood 
" 'Twixt the disparted nations, was no more, 
" Like fire, once kindled, spreading in its course, 
" Onward the mighty conflagration roll'd. 
" As if the Atlantic and the Southern seas, 
" Driv'n by opposing winds and urg'd amain 
" By fierce tornadoes, with their cumbrous weight 
" Should on a sudden at the narrowing pass 
" Of Darien burst the continental chain 
" And whelm together, so the nations rush'd 
" Impetuous through the breach, where Gama forc'd 
" His desperate passage ; terrible the shock, 
" From Ormus echoing to the Eastern isles 
" Of Java and Sumatra; India now 
" From th' hither Tropic to the Southern Cape 
" Show'd to the setting sun a shore of blood : 
" In vain her monarchs from a hundred thrones 
" Sounded the arbitrary word for war ; 
" In vain whole cataracts of dusky slaves 
" Poured on the coast : earth trembled with the weight ; 
" But what can slaves ? What can the nerveless arm, 
" Shrunk by that soft emasculating clime, 
" What the weak dart against the mailed breast 
" Of Europe's martial sons ? On sea, on shore 

" Great 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 131 

" Great Almeed triumph'd, and the rival sword 
" Of Albuquerque, invincible in arms, 
" Wasted the nations, humbling to the yoke 
" Kings, whom submissive myriads in the dust 
" Prostrate ador'd, and from the solar blaze 
" Of majesty retreating veil'd their eyes. 

"As when a roaming vulture on the wing 
" From Mauritania or the cheerless waste 
" Of sandy Thibet, by keen hunger prest, 
" With eye quick glancing from his airy height 
" Haply at utmost need descries a fawn, 
" Or kid, disporting in some fruitful vale, 
" Down, down at once the greedy felon drops 
" With wings close cow'ring in his hollow sides 
" Full on the helpless victim ; thence again 
" Tow'ring in air he bears his luscious prize, 
" And in his native wild enjoys the feast : 
" So these forth issuing from the rocky shore 
" Of distant Tagus on the quest for gain 
" In realms unknown, which feverish fancy paints 
" Glittering with gems and gold, range the wide seas, 
" Till India's isthmus, rising with the sun 
" To their keen sight, her fertile bosom spreads, 
" Period and palm of all their labours past ; 
" Whereat with avarice and ambition fir d, 
" Eager alike for plunder and for fame, 

s 2 " Onward 



132 MEMOIRS OF 

" Onward they press to spring upon their prey; 
" There every spoil obtained, which greedy haste 
" By force or fraud could ravish from the hands 
" Of Nature's peaceful sons, again they mount 
" Their richly freighted bark ; she, while the cries 
" Of widows and of orphans rend the strand, 
" Striding the billows, to the venal winds 
" Spreads her broad vans, and flies before the gale. 

" Here as by sad necessity I tell 
" Of human woes to rend the hearer's heart, 
" Truth be my Muse, and thou, my bosom's star, 
" The planetary mistress of my birth, 
" Parent of all my bliss, of all my pain, 
" Inspire me, gentle Pity, and attune 
" Thy numbers, heavenly cherub, to my strain ! 
" Thou, too, for whom my heart breathes every wish, 
" That filial love can form, fairest of isles, 
" Albion, attend and deign to hear a son, 
" Who for afflicted millions, prostrate slaves 
" Beneath oppression's scourge, and warning fast 
" By ghastly famine and destructive war, 
" No venal suit prefers ; so may thy fleets, 
" Mistress of commerce, link the Western world 
" To thy maternal bosom, chase the sun 
" Up to his source, and in the bright display 
" Of empire and the liberal search of fame 



Belt 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 133 

" Belt the wide globe — but mount, ye guardian waves, 

" Stand as a wall before the spoiler's path ! 

" Ye stars, your bright intelligence withdraw, 

" And darkness cover all, whom lust of gold, 

" Fell rapine, and extortion's guilty hope 

" Rouse from their native dust to rend the thrones 

" Of peaceful princes, and usurp that soil, 

" Where late as humble traffickers they sought 

" And found a shelter : thus what they obtained 

" By supplication they extend by force, 

'* Till in the wantonness of power they grasp 

" Whole provinces, where millions are their slaves. 

" Ah whither shall I turn to meet the face 

" Of love and human kindness in this world, 

" On which I now am ent'ring ? Gracious heaven, 

" If, as I trust, thou hast bestow'd a sense 

" Of thy best gift benevolence on me, 

"Oh visit me in mercy, and preserve 

" That spark of thy divinity alive, 

" Till time shall end me ! So when all the blasts 

" Of malice and unkindness, which my fate 

" May have in store, shall vent their rage upon me, 

" Feeling, but still forgiving, the assault, 

" I may persist with patience to devote 

" My life, my love, my labours to mankind." 

* * * 

The 



134 MEMOIRS OF 

The severest misfortune, that could menace my unhappy pa- 
tron, was now hanging over him. The state of Lady Halifax's 
health became daily more and more alarming ; she seemed to be 
sinking under a consumptive and exhausted constitution. It was 
then the custom for the chief familes in Northamptonshire to attend 
the county races in great form, and the Lord Lieutenant on that 
occasion made it a point to assemble his friends and party in their 
best equipage and array to grace the meeting : this was ever a for- 
midable task for poor Lady Halifax, whose tender spirits and de- 
clining health were ill suited to such undertakings ; but upon the 
last year of her accompanying her Lord to this meeting, I found 
her more than usually apprehensive, and she too truly predicted 
that it would accelerate her death. I attended upon her at that 
meeting, and when I expressed my hopes that she had escaped her 
fatigues without any material injury, as I was handing her to her 
coach on the morning of her departure, she shook her head and 
again repeated her entire conviction that she should not long sur- 
vive. My heart sunk as I took leave of her under this melancholy 
impression : we met no more : she languished for a time, and to 
the irreparable loss of her afflicted husband died. 

Lady Halifax was by birth of humble rank, and not endowed 
by nature with shining talents or superior charms of person. She 
did not aim at that display, which conciliates popularity, nor affect 
those arts, which invite admiration ; without any of those brilliant 
qualities, which, whilst they gratify a husband's vanity, too often 
endanger his honour and his peace, the virtues of her heart and 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 135 

the serenity of her temper were so happily adapted to allay and 
tranquillize the more empassioned character of her Lord, that every 
man, who knew his nature, could not fail to foresee the dangers he 
would be exposed to, when she was no longer at his side. He had 
still a true and faithful friend in Doctor Crane, and to him Lady 
Halifax had been most entirely attached. He merited all her con- 
fidence, and sincerely lamented her loss, foreseeing, as I had good 
reason to know, the unhappy consequences it might lead to, for by 
this time I was favoured with some tokens of his regard, that could 
not be mistaken, and though his feelings never forced him into 
warm expressions, yet his heart was kind, and his friendship sin- 
cere. Many days passed before I was summoned to pay my respects 
to the afflicted widower, who was represented to me as being almost 
frantic with his grief. I divided this time between my own home 
and the house of Ecton : at length I was invited to Horton, and the 
meeting was a very painful moment to us both. 

We soon removed to town for the winter season, and there whilst 
politics and public office began to occupy his thoughts, and by de- 
grees to wean him from his sorrows, I resumed my solitary lodgings 
in Mount-Street, where with my old Swiss servant for my caterer 
and cook, I lived in all the temperance and nearly all the retire- 
ment of a hermit. Then it was that I derived all my resources in 
the books I possessed, and the talents God had given me. I read 
and wrote incessantly, and should have been in absolute solitude 
but for the kind visits of my friend Higgs, who not forgetting our 
late intimacy at college and at school, nor disdaining my poor fare 

and 



136 MEMOIRS OF 

and dull society, cheered and relieved my spirits with the liveliness; 
and hilarity natural to him : these are favours I can never forget ; 
for they supported me at a time, when I felt all the gloominess of 
my situation, and yet wanted energy to extricate myself from it, 
and renounce those expectations, to which I had devoted so much 
time in profitless dependance. I lived indeed upon the narrowest 
system I could adopt, but nevertheless I could not make the income 
of my fellowship bear me through without the generous assistance 
of my father, and that reflection was the only painful concomitant 
of a disappointment, that I should not in my own particular else 
have wasted a regret upon. 

In the mean time the long and irksome residence in town, which 
my attendance upon Lord Halifax entailed upon me, and the painful 
separation from my family became almost insupportable, and whilst 
I was meditating a retreat, my good father, who participated with 
me and his whole family in these sensations, projected and con- 
cluded an exchange for his living of Stanwick with the Reverend 
Mr. Samuel Knight, and with permission of the Bishop of London, 
took the vicarage of Fulham as an equivalent, and thereby opened 
to me the happy prospect of an easier access to those friends so 
justly valued and so truly dear. 

In point of income the two livings were as nearly equal as could 
well be, therefore no pecuniary compensation passed between the 
contracting parties ; but the comforts of tranquillity in point of 
duty, or of conveniences in respect of locality, were all in favour 
of Mr. Knight, and nothing could have prevailed with my father 

for 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 137 

for leaving those, whom he had so long loved and cherished as his 
flock, but the generous motive of giving me an asylum in the bo- 
soms of my family. With this kind and benevolent object in his 
view, he submitted to the pain of tearing himself from his connex- 
ions, and amidst the lamentations of his neighbours and parish- 
ioners came up to Fulham to take upon himself the charge of a 
great suburbane parish, and quitted Stanwick, where he had re- 
sided for the space of thirty years in peace, beloved by all around 
him. 

He found a tolerably good parsonage house at Fulham, in which, 
with my mother and my sisters, he established himself with as much 
content, as could be looked for. Wherever he went the odour of 
his good name, and of course his popularity, was sure to follow 
him ; but the task of preaching to a large congregation after being 
so long familiarized to the service of his little church at Stanwick, 
oppressed his modest mind, and though his person, matter and 
manner were such as always left favourable impressions on his 
hearers, yet it was evident to us, who knew him and belonged to 
him, that he suffered by his exertions. 

Bishop Sherlock was yet living and resided in the palace, but in 
the last stage of bodily decay. The ruins of that luminous and 
powerful mind were still venerable, though his speech was almost 
unintelligible, and his features cruelly disarranged and distorted by 
the palsey : still his genius was alive, and his judgment discrimina- 
tive, for it was in this lamentable state that he performed the task 
of selecting sermons for the last volume he committed to the press, 

T and 



138 MEMOIRS OF 

and his high reputation was in no respect lowered by the selection. 
I had occasionally the honour of being admitted to visit that 
great man in company with my father, to whom he was uniformly 
kind and gracious, and in token of his favour bestowed on him a 
small Prebend in the church of Saint Paul, the only one that be- 
came vacant within his time. 

Mrs. Sherlock was a truly respectable woman, and my mother 
enjoyed much of her society till the bishop's death brought a suc- 
cessor in his place. 

In the adjoining parish of Hammersmith lived Mr. Dodington, 
at a splendid villa, which by the rule of contraries he was pleased 
to call La Trappe, and his inmates and familiars the monks of the 
convent ; these were Mr. Windham his relation, whom he made his 
heir, Sir William Breton, privy purse to the king, and Doctor 
Thompson, a physician out of practice ; these gentlemen formed a 
very curious society of very opposite characters ; in short it was a 
trio consisting of a misanthrope, a courtier and a quack. Mr. 
Glover, the author of Leonidas, was occasionally a visitor, but not 
an inmate as those above-mentioned. How a man of Dodington's 
sort came to single out men of their sort (with the exception of Mr. 
Glover) is hard to say, but though his instruments were never in 
unison, he managed to make music out of them all. He could 
make and find amusement in contrasting the sullenness of a Grum- 
betonian with the egregious vanity and self-conceit of an antiquated 
coxcomb, and as for the Doctor he was a jack-pudding ready to 
his hand at any time. He was understood to be Dodington's body- 
physician, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 130 

physician, but I believe he cared very little about his patient's 
health, and his patient cared still less about his prescriptions ; and 
when in his capacity of superintendent of his patron's dietetics, he 
cried out one morning at breakfast to have the muffins taken away, 
Dodington aptly enough cried out at the same time to the servant 
to take away the raggamuffin, and truth to say a more dirty animal 
than poor Thompson was never seen on the outside of a pig stye ; 
yet he had the plea of poverty and no passion for cold water. 

It is about a short and pleasant mile from this villa to the par- 
sonage house of Fulham, and Mr. Dodington having visited us with 
great politeness, I became a frequent guest at La Trappe, and 
passed a good deal of my time with him there, in London also, and 
occasionally in Dorsetshire. He was certainly one of the most ex- 
traordinary men of his time, and as I had opportunities of contem- 
plating his character in all its various points of view, I trust my 
readers will not. regret that I have devoted some pages to the further 
delineation of it. 

I have before observed that the nature of nry business as private 
secretary to Lord Halifax was by no means such as to employ any 
great portion of my time, and of course I could devote many hours 
to my own private pursuits without neglecting those attendances, 
which were due to my principal. Lord Halifax had also removed 
his abode to Downing-Street, having quitted his house in Grosvenor- 
Square upon the decease of his lady, so that I rarely found it ne- 
cessary to sleep in town, and could divide the rest of my time be- 
tween Fulham and La Trappe. It was likewise entirely corres- 

t 2 pondent 



140 MEMOIRS OF 

pondent with Lord Halifax's wishes that I should cultivate my 
acquaintance with Mr. Dodington, with whom he not only lived 
upon intimate terms as a friend, but was now in train to form, as 
it seemed, some opposition connexions ; for at this time it happen- 
ed that upon a breach with the Duke of Newcastle, he threw up 
his office of First Lord of Trade and Plantations, and detached him- 
self from administration. This took place towards the latter end of 
the late king's reign, and the ground of the measure was a breach 
of promise on the part of the Duke to give him the Seals and a 
Seat in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for the Colonies. 

In the summer of this year, being now an ex-secretary of an 
ex-statesman, I went to Eastbury, the seat of Mr. Dodington, in 
Dorsetshire, and passed the whole time of his stay in that place. 
Lord Halifax with his brother-in-law Coloneljohnstone of the Blues 
paid a visit there, and the Countess Dowager of Stafford and old 
Lady Hervey were resident with us the whole time. Our splendid 
host was excelled by no man in doing the honours of his house and 
table ; to the ladies he had all the courtly and profound devotion 
of a Spaniard, with the ease and gaiety of a Frenchman towards 
the men. His mansion was magnificent, massy and stretching out 
to a great extent of front with an enormous portico of Doric co- 
lumns ascended by a stately flight of steps ; there were turrets and 
wings that went I know not whither, though now they are levelled 
with the ground, and gone to more ignoble uses : Vanbrugh, who 
constructed this superb edifice, seemed to have had the plan of 
Blenheim in his thoughts, and the interior was as proud and splen- 
did 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 141 

did as the exterior was bold and imposing. All this was exactly in 
unison with the taste of its magnificent owner, who had gilt and 
furnished the apartments with a profusion of finery, that kept no 
terms with simplicity, and not always with elegance or harmony of 
style. Whatever Mr. Dodington's revenue then was, he had the 
happy art of managing it with that regularity and oeconomy, that I 
believe he made more display at less cost, than any man in the 
kingdom but himself could have done. His town house in Pall- 
Mail, his villa at Hammersmith, and the mansion above described, 
were such establishments as few nobles in the nation were possessed 
of. In either of these he was not to be approached but through a 
suite of apartments, and rarely seated but under painted ceilings 
and gilt entablatures. In his villa you were conducted through 
two rows of antique marble statues ranged in a gallery floored with 
the rarest marbles, and enriched with columns of granite and lapis 
lazuli; his saloon was hung with the finest Gobelin tapestry, and 
he slept in a bed encanopied with peacock's feathers in the style of 
Mrs. Montague. When he passed from Pali-Mall to La Trappe it 
was always in a coach, which I. could suspect had been his ambas- 
sadorial equipage at Madrid, drawn by six fat unwieldy black 
horses, short docked and of colossal dignity : neither was he less 
characteristic in apparel than in equipage ; he had a wardrobe 
loaded with rich and flaring suits, each in itself a load to the 
wearer, and of these I have no doubt but many were coeval with 
his embassy above mentioned, and every birth-day had added to 
the stock. In doing this he so contrived as never to put his old 

dresses 



142 MEMOIRS OF 

dresses out of countenance by any variations in the fashion of the 
new ; in the mean time his bulk and corpulency gave full display 
to a vast expanse and profusion of brocade and embroidery, and 
this, when set off with an enormous tye-perriwig and deep laced 
ruffles, gave the picture of an ancient courtier in his gala habit, or 
Quin in his stage dress; nevertheless it must be confessed this 
style, though out of date, was not out of character, but harmo- 
nized so well with the person of the wearer, that I remember when 
he made his first speech in the House of Peers as Lord Melcombe, 
all the flashes . of his wit, all the studied phrases and well-turned 
periods of his rhetoric lost their effect simply because the orator 
had laid aside his magisterial tye, and put on a modern bag wig, 
which was as much out of costume upon the broad expanse of his 
shoulders, as a cue would have been upon the robes of the Lord 
Chief Justice. 

Having thus dilated more than perhaps I should have done upon 
this distinguished person's passion for magnificence and display, 
when I proceed to enquire into those principles of good taste, which 
should naturally have been the accompaniments and directors of 
that magnificence, I fear I must be compelled by truth to admit 
that in these he was deficient. Of pictures he seemed to take his 
estimate only by their cost ; in fact he was not possessed of any ; but 
I recollect his saying to me one day in his great saloon at Eastbury, 
that if he had half a score pictures of a thousand pounds apiece, he 
would gladly decorate his walls with them, in place of which I am 
sorry to say he had stuck up immense patches of gilt leather shaped 

into 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. U3 

into bugle horns upon hangings of rich crimson velvet, and round his 
state bed he displayed a carpeting of gold and silver embroidery, 
which too glaringly betrayed its derivation from coat, waistcoat 
and breeches by the testimony of pockets, button-holes and loops 
with other equally incontrovertible witnesses, subpoena'd from the 
tailors shopboard. When he paid his court at St. James's to the 
present queen upon her nuptials, he approached to kiss her hand 
decked in an embroidered suit of silk with lilac waistcoat and 
breeches, the latter of which in the act of kneeling down forgot 
their duty, and broke loose from their moorings in a very indecorous 
and uncourtl}" manner. 

In the higher provinces of taste we may contemplate his cha- 
racter with more pleasure, for he had an ornamented fancy and a 
brilliant wit. He was an elegant Latin classic, and well versed in 
history ancient and modern. His favourite prose writer was Tacitus, 
and I scarce ever surprised him in his hours of reading without 
finding that author upon his table before him. He understood him 
well, and descanted upon him very agreeably and with much cri- 
tical acumen. Mr. Dodington was in nothing more remarkable 
than in ready perspicuity and clear discernment of a subject thrown 
before him on a sudden ; take his first thoughts then, and he would 
charm you ; give him time to ponder and refine, you would perceive 
the spirit of his sentiments and the vigour of his genius evaporate 
by the process ; for though his first view of the question would be 
a wide one and clear withal, when he came to exercise the sub- 
tlety of his disquisitorial powers upon it, he would so ingeniously 

dissect 



144 MEMOIRS OF 

dissect and break it into fractions, that as an object, when looked 
upon too intently for a length of time, grows misty and confused, so 
would the question under his discussion, when the humour took 
him to be hyper-critical. Hence it was that his impromptu's in 
parliament were generally more admired than his studied speeches, 
and his first suggestions in the councils of his party better attended 
to than his prepared opinions. 

Being a man of humble birth, he seemed to have an innate 
respect for titles, and none bowed with more devotion to the robes 
and fasces of high rank and office. He was decidedly aristocratic : 
he paid his court to Walpole in panegyric poems, apologizing for 
his presumption by reminding him, that it was better to be pelted 
with roses than with rotten eggs : to Chesterfield, to Winnington, 
Pulteney, Fox and the luminaries of his early time he offered up 
the oblations of his genius, and incensed them with all the odours 
of his wit : in his latter days, and within the period of my acquaint- 
ance with him, the Earl of Bute in the plenitude of his power was 
the god of his idolatry. That noble Lord was himself too much 
a man of letters and a patron of the sciences to overlook a witty 
head, that bowed so low, he accordingly put a coronet upon it, 
which, like the barren sceptre in the hand of Macbeth, merely served 
as a ticket for the coronation procession, and having nothing else 
to leave to posterity in memory of its owner, left its mark upon 
the lid of his coffin. 

puring my stay at Eastbury, we were visited by the late Mr. 
Henry Fox and Mr. Alderman Beckford : the solid good sense of 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 145 

the former, and the dashing loquacity of the latter, formed a striking 
contrast between the characters of these gentlemen. To Mr. Fox 
our host paid all that courtly homage, which he so well knew how 
to time and where to apply ; to Beckford he did not observe the 
same attentions, but in the happiest flow of his raillery and wit 
combated this intrepid talker with admirable effect. It was an 
interlude truly comic and amusing. Beckford loud, voluble, self- 
sufficient and galled by hits, which he could not parry and proba- 
bly did not expect, laid himself more and more open in the vehe- 
mence of his argument ; Dodington, lolling in his chair in perfect 
apathy and self-command, dosing and even snoring at intervals in 
his lethargic way, broke out every now and then into such gleams 
and flashes of wit and irony, as by the contrast of his phlegm with 
the other's impetuosity, made his humour irresistible, and set the 
table in a roar. He Avas here upon his very strongest ground, for 
no man was better calculated to exemplify how true the observation 

is 

Ridiculum acri 
Fortius ac melius — 
At the same time he had his serious hours and graver topics, 
which he would handle with all due solemnity of thought and lan- 
guage, and these were to me some of the most pleasing hours I 
have passed with him, for he could keep close to his point, if he 
would, and could be not less argumentative than he was eloquent, 
when the question was of magnitude enough to interest him. It is 
with singular satisfaction I can truly say that I never knew him 

u flippant 



146' MEMOIRS OF 

flippant upon sacred subjects. He was however generally courted 
and admired as a gay companion rather than as a grave one. 

I have said that the dowager Ladies Stafford and Hervey made 
part of our domestic society, and as the trivial amusement of cards 
was never resorted to in Mr. Dodington s house, it was his custom 
in the evenings to entertain his company with reading, and in this 
art he excelled ; his selections however were curious, for he treated 
these ladies with the whole of Fielding's Jonathan Wild, in which 
he certainly consulted his own turn for irony rather than their s for 
elegance, but he set it off with much humour after his manner, and 
they were polite enough to be pleased, or at least to appear as if 
they were. 

His readings from Shakespear were altogether as whimsical, for 
he chose his passages only where buffoonery was the character of 
the scene; one of these I remember was that of the clown, who 
brings the asp to Cleopatra. He had however a manuscript copy 
of Glover's Medea, which he gave us con amove, for he was ex- 
tremely warm in his praises of that classical drama, which Mrs. 
Yates afterwards brought upon the stage, and played in it with her 
accustomed excellence ; he did me also the honour to devote an 
evening to the reading of some lines, which I had hastily written to 
the amount of about four hundred, partly complimentary to him 
as my host, and in part consolatory to Lord Halifax upon the 
event of his retiring from public office ; they flattered the politics 
then in favour with Mr. Dodington, and coincided with his wishes 
for detaching Lord Halifax from the administration of the Duke of 

Newcastle. 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 147 

Newcastle. I was not present, as may well be conceived, at this 
reading, but I confess I sate listening in the next room, and was 
not a little gratified by what I overheard. Of this manuscript I 
have long since destroyed the only copy that I had, and if I had it 
now in my hands it would be only to consign it to the flames, for 
it was of that occasional class of poems for the day, which have 
no claim upon posterity, and in such I have not been ambitious to 
concern myself: it served the purpose however and amused the 
moment ; it was also the tribute of my mite to the lares of that 
mansion, where the Muse of Young had dictated his tragedy of 
The Revenge, and which the Genius of Voltaire had honoured with 
a visit: here Glover had courted inspiration, and Thompson caught 
it : Dodington also himself had a lyre, but he had hung it up, and 
it was never very high-sounding ; yet he was something more than 
a mere admirer of the Muse. He wrote small poems with great 
pains, and elaborate letters with much terseness of style, and some 
quaintness of expression : I have seen him refer to a volume of his 
own verses in manuscript, but he was very shy, and I never had 
the perusal of it. I was rather better acquainted with his diary, 
which since his death has been published, and I well remember the 
temporary disgust he seemed to take, when upon his asking what 
I would do with it, should he bequeath it to my discretion, I in- 
stantly replied, that I would destroy it. There was a third, which 
1 more coveted a sight of than of either of the above, as it con- 
tained a miscellaneous collection of anecdotes, repartees, good 
sayings and humorous incidents, of which he was part author 

u 2 and 



148 MEMOIRS OF 

and part compiler, and out of which he was in the habit of refresh- 
ing his memory, when he prepared himself to expect certain men 
of wit and pleasantry either at his own house or elsewhere. Upon 
this practice, which he did not affect to conceal, he observed to 
me one day, that it was a compliment he paid to society, when 
he submitted to steal weapons out of his own armoury for their 
entertainment, and ingenuously added, that although his memory 
was not in general so correct as it had been, yet he trusted it would 
save him from the disgrace of repeating the same story to the same 
hearers, or foisting it into conversation in the wrong place or out of 
time. No man had fewer oversights of that sort to answer for, and 
fewer still were the men, whose social talents could be compared 
with those of Mr. Dodington. 

Upon my return out of Dorsetshire, I was invited by my friends 
at Trinity College to come and offer myself as a candidate for the 
Lay-fellowship then vacant by the death of Mr. Titley the Danish 
envoy. There are but. two fellowships of this description, and there 
were several solicitors for an exemption so desirable, but the un- 
abated kindness of the master and seniors patronized my suit, and 
honoured me with that last and most distinguished mark of their 
favour and protection. I did not hold it long, for Providence had 
a blessing in store for me, which was an effectual disqualification 
from holding any honours on the terms of celibacy. 

About this time I wrote my first legitimate drama in five acts, 
and entitled it The Banishment of Cicero. I was led to this by the 
perusal of Middleton's account of his life, which afforded me much 

entertainment. 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 149 

entertainment. As the hero of a drama I was not happy in my 
choice of Cicero, and banishment is a tame incident to depend 
upon for the interest and catastrophe of a tragic plot. I knew that 
his philosophy had deserted him on this occasion, and that I could 
find no feature of Coriolanus in the character of my exile, but as I 
began it without any view of offering it to the stage, as long as I 
found amusement I continued to write. As a classical composition, 
which tells its story in fair language, and has stood the test of the 
press both in England and Ireland with the approbation of some, 
who were most competent to decide upon it, I may venture to 
say it was creditable to its author as a first attempt. It has been 
long out of print, and when after a period of more than forty inter- 
mediate years I read it (as I have now been doing) with all the 
impartiality in my power, I certainly can discover inaccuracies in 
the diction here and there, and in the plot an absolute inaptitude 
to scenic exhibition, yet I think I may presume to say, that as a 
dramatic poem for the closet it will bear examination, though I 
cannot expect that any of its readers at this time would pass so 
favourable a judgment upon it as I was honoured with by Primate 
Stone and Bishop Warburton, from the latter of whom I received a 
letter, which I have preserved, and Avhich I cannot withstand the 
temptation of inserting, though I am thoroughly conscious it be- 
stows praises far above the merits of my humble work — 

To 



150 MEMOIRS OF 

To Richard Cumberland, Esq. 

Grosvenor-Square, May 15, 1767. 
Dear Sir, 

Let me thank you for the sight of a very fine dramatic Poem. 
It is (like Mr. Masons) much too good for a prostitute stage. Yes- 
terday I received a letter from the Primate. He was on the point of 
leaving Bath for Ireland: so that my letter got to him just in time — It 
gives me great satisfaction, says he, that my opinion of Bishop Cumber- 
land's grandson agrees with yours, fyc. fyc. 

I have the honour to be, 

Dear Sir, your very faithful 

And assured humble servant, 

W. Gloucester. 
It is a singular circumstance, though perhaps not a favourable 
one, that in the dramatis personam of this play there is not one 
auxiliary character; they are all principals, and such in respect of 
consequence as few authors ever brought together in one point of 
view, for they consist of the two Consuls L. Calphurnius Piso and 
Aulus Gabinius, the Tribune P. Clodius, Cicero and Pomponius 
Atticus, Caius Piso Frugi, Terentia and Tullia, wife and daughter 
of Cicero, and Clodia sister of the Tribune, without one speaking 
attendant or interloper throughout the piece, except a very few 
words from one Apollodorus. 

To give display to characters like these the bounds of any single 
drama would hardly serve, and of course the arrangement was so 
far injudicious; yet the author, as if he had not enough on his 

hands 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 151 

hands, goes aside to speak of Cato in the scene betwixt Gabinius 
and Clodius — 

" Gab. — Cato is still severe, is still himself: 

" Rough and unshaken in his squalid garb, 
" He told us he had long in anguish mourn'd, 
" Not in a private but the public cause, 
" Not for the wrong of one, but wrong of all, 
" Of Liberty, of Virtue and of Rome. 
« Clod— No more : I sleep o'er Cato's drowsy theme. 

" He is the senate's drone, and dreams of liberty, 
" When Rome's vast empire is set up to sale, 
" And portioned out to each ambitious bidder 

" In marketable lots " 

In the further progress of the same scene Pompey is mentioned, 
and Calphurnius Piso introduced in the following terms — 

" Gab. Oh ! who shall attempt to read 

" In Pompey 's face the movements of his heart ? 
" The same calm artificial look of state, 
" His half-clos'd eyes in self-attention wrapt, 
" Serve him alike to mask unseemly joy, 
" Or hide the pangs of envy and revenge. 
" Clod.— Sec, yonder your old colleague Piso comes ! 
" But name hypocrisy and he appears. 
" How like his grandsire's monument he looks ! 
" He wears the dress of holy Numa's days, 
" The brow and beard of Zeno ; trace him home, 

« You'll 



152 MEMOIRS OF 

" You'll find his house the school of vice and lust, 
" The foulest sink of Epicurus' sty, 
" And him the rankest swine of all the herd." 
I find the two first acts are wound up with some couplets in 
rhyme after the manner of the middle age. It will I hope be par- 
donable if I here insert the lines, with which Clodius concludes the 
first act — 

" When flaming comets vex our frighted sphere, 
" Though now the nations melt with awful fear, 
" From the dread omen fatal ills presage, 
" Dire plague and famine and war's wasting rage; 
" In time some brighter genius may arise, 
" And banish signs and omens from the skies, 
" Expound the comet's nature and its cause, 
" Assign its periods and prescribe its laws, 
" Whilst man grown wise, with his discoveries fraught, 
" Shall wonder how he needed to be taught." 
I shall only add that the dialogue between Cicero and Atticus 
in the third act seems in point of poetry one of the happiest efforts 
of its author : in short, although this drama has not all the finishing 
of a veteran artist, yet in parts it has a warmth of colouring and a 
strength of expression, which might induce a candid reader to 
augur not unfavourably of the novice who composed it. 

It is here I begin more particularly to feel the weight of those 
difficulties, which at my outset I too rashly announced myself pre- 
pared to meet. When I review what I have been saying about this 

my 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 153 

my first drama, and recollect what numbers are behind, I am al- 
most tempted to shrink back from the task, to which I am com- 
mitted. If indeed the candour and liberality of my readers will 
allow me to step out of myself, (if I may so term it) whilst I am 
speaking of myself, I have little to fear; but if I must be tied down 
to my individuality, and not allowed my fair opinion without in- 
curring the charge of self-conceit, I am in a most unenviable situa- 
tion, and must either abandon my undertaking, or abide by the 
conditions of it with what fortitude I can muster. If, when I am 
professedly the recorder of my own writings, I am to record nothing 
in them or about them but their simple titles and the order in which 
they were written, I give the reader nothing more than a catalogue, 
which any magazine might furnish, or the prompter's register as 
well supply ; if on the contrary I proceed to fulfil the real purposes 
of biographer and critic, ought I not to act as honestly and consci- 
entiously in my own case, as I would in the instance of another 
person ? I think I ought: it is what the title of my book professes; 
how I am to execute it I do not know, and how my best endeavours 
may be received I can form no guess. In the mean time I will 
strive to arm myself with an humble but honest mind, resolving, as 
far as in me lies, not to speak partially of my works because they 
are my own, nor slightingly against my conscience from apprehen- 
sion that readers may be found to differ from me, where my 
thoughts may seem more favourable than their's. The latter of 
these consequences may perhaps frequently occur, and when it 
does, my memoirs must encounter it, and acquit themselves of it 

x as 



154 MEMOIRS OF 

as they can ; for myself, it cannot be long before I am alike insen 
sible to censure or applause. 

This play, of which I have been speaking, laid by me for a 
considerable time; till Lord Halifax one day, when we were at 
Bushey Park, desired me to shew it to him ; he read it, and imme- 
diately proposed to carry it to Garrick, and recommend it to 
him for representation. Garrick was then at Hampton, and I went 
with Lord Halifax across the park to his house. This was the first 
time I found myself in company with that extraordinary man. He 
received his noble visitor with profound obeisance, and in truth 
there were some claims upon his civility for favours and indulgen- 
ces granted to him by Lord Halifax as Ranger of Bushey Park. I 
was silently attentive to every minute particular of this interview, 
and soon discovered the embarrassment, which the introduction of 
my manuscript occasioned ; I saw my cause was desperate, though 
my advocate was sanguine, and in truth the first effort of a raw 
author did not promise much to the purpose of the manager. He 
took it however with all possible respect, and promised an attentive 
perusal, but those tell-tale features, so miraculously gifted in the 
art of assumed emotions, could not mask their real ones, and I pre- 
dicted to Lord Halifax, as we returned to the lodge, that I had no 
expectation of my play being accepted. A day or two of what 
might scarce be called suspense confirmed this prediction, when 
Mr. Garrick having stated his despair of accommodating a play on 
such a plan to the purposes of the stage, returned the manuscript 
to Lord Halifax with many apologies to his Lordship, and some few 

qualifying 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 155 

qualifying words to its author, which certainly was as much as in 
reason could be expected from him, though it did not satisfy the 
patron of the play, who warmly resented his non-compliance with 
his wishes, and for a length of time forbore to live in habits of his 
former good neighbourhood with him. 

When I published this play, which I soon after did, I was con- 
scious that I published Mr. Garrick's justification for refusing it, 
and I made no mention of the circumstances above stated. 

George* Ridge Esquire of Kilmiston in the county of Hants, 
had two sons and one daughter by Miss Brooke, niece to my grand- 
father Bentley ; with this family we had lived as friends and rela- 
tions in habits of the greatest intimacy. It was upon an excursion, 
as I have before related, to this gentleman's house that I founded 
my school-boy poem written at Bury, and our families had kept 
up an interchange of annual visits for a course of time. From these 
meetings I had been for several years unluckily excluded by my 
avocations to college or London, till upon Mr. Ridge's coming to 
town accompanied by his wife and daughter, and taking lodgings 
in the near neighbourhood of Mount-Street, where I held my me- 
lancholy abode, I was kindly entertained by them, and found so 
many real charms in the modest manners and blooming beauty of 
the amiable daughter, that I passed every hour I could command 
in her society, and devoted all my thoughts to the attainment of 
that happiness, which it was in her power to bestow upon my fu- 
ture days. As soon therefore as I obtained, through the patronage 
of Lord Halifax, a small establishment as Crown- Agent for the 

x 2 province 



156 MEMOIRS OF 

province of Nova Scotia, I began to hope the object I aspired to 
was within my reach, when upon a visit she made with her parents 
to mine at Fulham, I tendered my addresses, and had the un- 
speakable felicity to find them accepted, and sanctioned by the 
consent of all parties concerned ; thus I became possessed of one, 
whom the virtues of her heart and the charms of her person had ef- 
fectually endeared to me, and on the 19th day of February 1759, 
(being my birth-day J I was married by my father in the church of 
Kilmiston to Elizabeth, only daughter of George and Elizabeth 
Ridge. 

Lord Halifax upon some slight concessions from the Duke of 
Newcastle had reassumed his office of First Lord of Trade and Plan- 
tations, and I returned with my wife to Fulham, taking a house for 
a short time in Duke-Street Westminster, and afterwards in Abing- 
don Buildings. 

In the following year, upon the death of the king, administra- 
tion it is well known took a new shape, and all eyes were turned 
towards the Earl of Bute, as dispenser of favours and awarder of 
promotions. Mr. Dodington, whom I had visited a second time at 
Eastbury with my wife and her father Mr. Ridge, obtained an 
English peerage, and Lord Halifax was honoured with the high 
office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and was preparing to open 
his majesty's first parliament in that kingdom: I had reason to 
believe myself at this time very much in his confidence, and in the 
conduct of a certain private transaction, which I am not called 
upon to explain, I had done him faithful service ; happy for him 

it 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 157 

it would have been, and the prevention of innumerable troubles 
and vexations, if my zealous efforts had been permitted to take 
effect, but a fatal propensity had again seized possession of him, 
and probably the more strongly for the interruption it had received 
— but of this enough. 

His family was now to be formed upon an establishment suit- 
able to his high office. In these arrangements there was much to 
do, and I was fully occupied. Some few persons of obscure cha- 
racters were pressed upon him for subordinate situations from a 
quarter, where I had no communication or connexion; but I had 
the satisfaction to see his old and faithful friend Doctor Crane pre- 
pare himself to head the list of his chaplains, and Doctor Oswald, 
afterwards Bishop of Raphoe, with my good father compleated that 
department. I obtained a situation for a gentleman, who had 
married my eldest sister, but what gave me peculiar satisfaction was 
to have it in my power to gratify the wishes of one of the best and 
bravest young officers of his time, Captain William Ridge, brother 
to my wife. He had served the whole war in America with distin- 
guished reputation ; had been shot and carried off the field in the 
fatal affair of Ticonderago, and was now returned with honorable 
wounds and the praises and esteem of his general and brother offi- 
cers. This amiable, this excellent friend, whose heart was as it 
were my own, and whose memory will be ever dear to me, I caused 
to be put upon the staff of Aids-de-Camp, and had the happiness 
of making him one of my family during the whole time of my resi- 
dence in Dublin Castle as Ulster-Secretary. 

William 



158 MEMOIRS OF 

William Gerard Hamilton, a name well known, had negociated 
himself into the office of Chief Secretary. I need say no more than 
that he did not owe this to the choice of Lord Halifax; of course it 
was not easy for that gentleman to find himself in the confidence of 
his principal, to whom he was little known, and in the first instance 
not altogether acceptable. I do not think he took much pains to 
conquer first impressions, and recommend himself to the confidence 
of Lord Halifax : it is certain he did not possess it, and the conse- 
quence was, that I, who held the secondary post of Ulster Secretary, 
became involved in business of a nature, that should not in the course 
of office have belonged to me. Affairs of this sort, which I did not 
court, and had no right to be concerned in, made my situation 
very delicate and not a little dangerous, whilst at the same time 
the entire superintendance of Lord Halifax's private finances, then 
very far from being in a flourishing condition, was a task, which 
no prudent man would covet, yet such an one as for his sake I 
made no scruple to undertake. It was his lot to succeed the Duke 
of Bedford, and his high spirit would not suffer him to sink upon 
the comparison ; I found him therefore resolute to start on his 
career with great magnificence, and leave behind him all atten- 
tions to expence. All that was in my power I did with unwearied 
diligence and attention to his interest, inspecting his accounts and 
paying his bills every week to the minutest article. I put his 
Green Cloth upon a liberal, but regulated, establishment ; I placed 
a faithful and well experienced servant of my father s at the head 
of his stables and equipages, and gave charge of the household 

articles 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 159 

articles to his principal domestic, of whose honesty he had had 
many years experience. 

I had published my tragedy of The Banishment of Cicero by 
Mr. J. Walter at Charing-Cross upon quarto. paper in a handsome 
type; I found it pirated and published in a sixpenny edition at 
Dublin, from the press of George Faulkner of immortal memory : 
if he had subjoined a true and faithful list of errata, I doubt if he 
could have afforded it at the price. I also upon the king's acces- 
sion composed and published a poem addressed to the young sove- 
reign, in which I attempted to delineate the character of the people 
he was to govern, and the principles of that conduct, which, if 
pursued, would ensure their attachment, and establish his own 
happiness and glory. This I wrote in blank verse; it was pub- 
lished by Mr. Dodsley, and I did not give my name to it. Of the 
extent of its circulation I cannot speak, neither did I make any 
search into the reviews of that time for the character, good or ill, 
which they thought fit to give it. 

I had taken leave of Lord Melcombe the day preceding the 
coronation, and found him before a looking-glass in his new robes 
practising attitudes and debating within himself upon the most 
graceful mode of carrying his coronet in the procession. He was 
in high glee with his fresh and blooming honours, and I left him in 
the act of dictating a billet to Lady Hervey, apprising her that a 
young lord was coining to throw himself at her feet. He conjured 
me to keep my Lord Lieutenant firmly attached to Lord Bute, and 
we parted. 

Here 



160 MEMOIRS OF 

Here however I must take leave to pause upon a period in the 
life of my uncle Mr. Bentley, when fortune smiled upon him, and 
his genius was drawn forth into exertion by the patronage of Lord 
Bute. Through my intimacy with Mr. Dodington I had been the 
lucky instrument of opening that channel, which for a time at least 
brought him affluence, comfort and consideration. There was not 
a man of literary talents then in the kingdom, who stood so high 
and so deservedly in fame and favour with the Premier as Mr. 
Bentley ; and though, when that great personage went out of office, 
my uncle lost every place of profit, that could be taken from him, 
he continued to enjoy a pension of five hundred pounds per annum, 
in which his widow had her life, and received it many years after his 
decease. 

Lord Bute had all the disposition of a Mecaenas, and fondly 
hoped he would be the auspicious instrument of opening an Au- 
gustan reign ; he sent out his runners upon the search for men 
of talents, and Dodington was perfectly reconciled to the ho- 
nour of being his provider in that laudable pursuit, for which no 
man was better qualified. He was not wanting in intuition to dis- 
cern what the powers of Bentley 's genius were, and none could 
better point out the purposes, to which they might be usefully di- 
rected. Opposition was then beginning to look up, and soon felt 
the sharp point of Bentley 's pen in one of the keenest and wittiest 
satires, extant in our language. Lord Temple, Wilkes, and others 
of the party were attacked with unsparing asperity, and much clas- 
sical acumen. Churchill, the Dryden of his age, and indisputably 

a man 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 161 

a man of a first-rate genius, was too candid not to acknowledge the 
merit of the poem, and when he declined taking up the gauntlet so 
pointedly thrown down to him, it was not because he held his 
challenger in contempt. It was this poem, that brought an accu- 
mulation of favours on its author, but I don't know that he ever 
had an interview with the bestower of them, and I am rather in- 
clined to think they never met. About the same time my uncle 
composed his witty but eccentric drama of The Wishes, in which he 
introduces the speaking Harlequin after the manner of the Italians. 
This curious production, after being circulated in manuscript, ad- 
mired and applauded by all who had seen it, and those the very 
party, which led the taste of the time under the auspices of Lord 
Bute, was privately rehearsed at Lord Melcombe's villa of La 
Trappe. It was on a beautiful summer's evening when it was re- 
cited upon the terrace on the banks of the Thames, by Obrien, Miss 
Elliot, Mrs. Haughton and' some few others under the management 
of Foote and Murphy, who attended on the occasion. At this re- 
hearsal, there was present — a youth unknown to fame — who was un- 
derstood to be protected by Lord Bute, and came thither in a 
hackney coach with Mrs. Haughton. This gentleman was of the 
party at the supper with which the evening's entertainment con- 
cluded ; he modestly resigned the conversation to those, who were 
more disposed to carry it on, whilst it was only in the comtempla- 
tion of an intelligent countenance that we could form any conjec- 
ture as to that extraordinary gift of genius, which in course of time 
advanced him to the Great Seal of the kingdom and the Earldom of 
Rosslyn. y Foote, 



162 MEMOIRS OF 

Foote, Murphy and Obrien were then joint conductors of the 
summer theatre, and performed their plays upon the stage of Drury 
Lane, and here they brought out The Wishes, which had now been 
so much the topic of conversation, that it drew all the wit and 
fashion then in town to its first representation. The brilliancy of 
its dialogue, and the reiterated strokes of point and repartee kept 
the audience in good humour with the leading acts, and seemed to 
augur favourably for the conclusion, till when the last of the Three 
Wishes produced the ridiculous catastrophe of the hanging of Har- 
lequin in full view of the audience, my uncle, the author, then 
sitting by me, whispered in my ear — " If they don't damn this, they 
" deserve to be damn'd themselves — " and whilst he was yet speak- 
ing the roar began, and The Wishes were irrevocably condemned. 
Mr. Harris some years after gave it a second chance upon his 
stage: the judgment of the public could not take away the merit 
of the poet, but it decided against his success. Upon the hint of 
this play, and the entertainment at La Trappe, where Foote had 
been a guest, that wicked wit took measure of his host, and found- 
ed his satirical drama of The Patron — in short he feasted, flattered 
and lampooned. 

Mr. Bentley also wrote a very elegant poem, and addressed it 
as an epistle to Lord Melcombe : it was in my opinion a most ex- 
quisite composition, in no respect inferior to his satire, but for rea- 
sons I could never understand, nor even guess, it was coolly receiv- 
ed by Melcombe, and stopt with him. If that poem is in the 
hands of any of Mr. Bentley 's family, it is much to be regretted 

that 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 163 

that they withhold it from the public, though all that was then 
temporary is now long past and forgotten. 

What may be the nature or amount of the manuscripts, which 
my uncle may have left behind him, I do not know : I can speak 
only of two dramas ; one of these entitled Philodamus has been 
given to the public by Mr. Harris, and Henderson performed the 
character, that gives its name to the play. The ingenious author 
always wrote for the reader, he did not study how to humour the 
spectator : Philodamus has much of the old cast in its style, with 
a considerable portion of originality and a bold vein of humour 
running through it, occasionally intermixed even with the pathos of 
the scene, which in a modern composition, professing itself to be a 
tragedy, is a perilous experiment. Such it proved to Philodamus ; 
its very best passages in perusal were its weakest points in repre- 
sentation, and it may be truly said it was ruined by its virtues : but 
in the galleries of our theatres the Graces have no seats, and he 
that writes to the populace must not borrow the pen of the author 
of Philodamus. Poet Gray wrote a long and elaborate critique 
upon this drama, which I saw, and though his flattery was outra- 
geously pedantic, yet the incense of praise from author to author is 
alwa} r s sweet, and perhaps not the less acceptable on account of 
its being so seldom offered up. The other drama on the Genoese 
Conspiracy I saw in its unfinished state, and can only say that 
I was struck by certain passages, but cannot speak of it as a whole. 

When the ceremony of the coronation was over, the Lord Lieu- 
tenant set out for Ireland with a numerous cavalcade. I was now 

y l 2 the 



164 MEMOIRS OF 

the father of two infant children, a daughter and a son ; these I 
left with their grandmother Mrs. Ridge, and was accompanied by 
my wife, though in a state ill calculated to endure the rough roads 
by land, and the more rough passage by sea: my father, mother 
and sisters were with us in the yacht ; they took a house in Dublin, 
and I was by office an inhabitant of the castle, and lodged in very 
excellent and commodious apartments. 

The speech of the Lord Lieutenant upon the opening of the 
session is upon record. It was generally esteemed a very brilliant 
composition. His graceful person and impressive manner of deli- 
very set it off to its best advantage, and all things seemed to augur 
well for his success. When I was called in jointly with Secretary 
Hamilton to take the project and rough copy of this speech into 
consideration, I could not help remarking the extraordinary efforts, 
Avhich that gentleman made to engraft his own very peculiar style 
upon the sketch before him ; in this I sometimes agreed with him, 
but more commonly opposed him, till Lord Halifax, whose pati- 
ence began to be exhausted, no longer submitted his copy to be 
dissected, but took it to himself with such alterations as he saw fit 
to adopt, and those but few. I must candidly acknowledge that at 
times when I have heard people searching for internal evidence in 
the style of Junius as to the author of those famous letters, I have 
called to recollection this circumstance, which I have now related, 
and occasionally said that the style of Junius bore a strong resem- 
blance to what I had observed of the style of Secretary Hamilton ; 
beyond this I never had the least grounds for conjecture, nor any 

clue 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. lOo 

clue to lead me to the discovery of that anonymous writer beyonu 
what I have alluded to. 

I remember a conversation he held with me some time before 
w r e left England on the subject of Mr. Edmund Burke, whom he 
had then attached to himself, and for whom he wished me to assist 
in projecting some establishment. I had then never seen that emi- 
nent person, nor did I meet him till after my arrival in Dublin, when 
I had merely the opportunity of introducing myself to him in pass- 
ing through the apartment, where he was in attendance upon Mr. 
Hamilton. He had indeed his fortune to make, but he was not 
disposed to make it by any means but such as perfectly accorded 
with his feelings and his honour; for when Mr. Hamilton contrived to 
accommodate him by some private manoeuvre, which I am not cor- 
rectly possessed of, he saw occasion in a short time after his accep- 
tance of it to throw it up, and break from all connexion with that 
gentleman and his politics. With the Lord Lieutenant he had 
little, if any, correspondence or acquaintance, for though Lord 
Halifax's intuition could not have failed to discover the merits of 
Mr. Burke, and rightly to have appreciated them, had they ever 
come cordially into contact, it was not from the quarter, in which 
he was then placed, that favour and promotion were to be looked 
for. 

Without entering upon the superannuated politics of that time, 
it is enough to say that the king's business was carried through the 
session with success, and when the vote was passed for augmenting 
the revenue of the Lord Lieutenant, and settling it at the standard, 

to 



166 MEMOIRS OF 

to which it is now fixed, he accepted and passed it in favour of his 
successors, but peremptorily rejected it for himself. At this very 
time I had issued to the amount of twenty thousand pounds ex- 
pended in office, whilst he had been receiving about twelve, and I 
know not where that man could have been found, to whom those 
exceedings were more severely embarrassing than to this disinte- 
rested personage ; but in this case he acted entirely from the dic- 
tates of his own high spirit, scarce deigning to lend an ear to the 
remonstrances even of Doctor Crane, and taking his measures with 
such rapidity, as to preclude all hesitation or debate. 

His popularity however was so established by this high-minded 
proceeding, that upon his departure from Ireland all parties seem- 
ed to unite in applauding his conduct and invoking his return : the 
shore was thronged with crowds of people, that followed him to the 
water's edge, and the sea was in a manner covered with boats and 
vessels, that accompanied the yacht through the bay, studious to 
pay to their popular chief governor every valedictory honour, that 
their zeal and attention could devise. 

The patronage of the Lord Lieutenant was at that time so ex- 
tremely circumscribed, that except in the church and army few 
expectants could have been put in possession of their wishes, had 
not my under-secretaiy Mr. Roseingrave discovered a number of 
lapsed patents, that had lain dormant in my office for a length of 
time, neither allowances nor perquisites being annexed to them. 
When a pretty considerable number of these patents were collected, 
and a list of them made out, I laid them before the Lord Lieute- 
nant 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 167 

nant for his disposal in such manner as he saw fit. He at once 
discerned the great accommodation they would afford him, and 
very gladly availed himself of them, obtaining grants of parliament 
for each respectively, which, though virtually pensions, were not 
so glaringly obnoxious, nor were any of them in fact such absolute 
sine-cures, some duty being attached to every one of them. They 
were certainly a very seasonable accession to his patronage, and I 
make no doubt a very acceptable one to the circumstances of those, 
on whom he bestowed them. I sought no share in the spoil, but 
rather wished to stand correctly clear of any interested part in the 
transaction ; some small thing however I asked and obtained for 
my worthy second Mr. Roseingrave, who had all the merit of the 
manoeuvre, and many other merits of a much superior sort, for 
which I sincerely esteemed him, and, till his death put an end to 
our correspondence, preserved a constant interchange of friendly 
sentiments, and at times of visits, when either he came to England, 
or I passed over to Ireland. 

And here, injustice to myself, I must take credit for a disinte- 
restedness which never could be betrayed into the acceptance of any 
thing, however covered or contrived (and many were the devices 
then ingeniously practised upon me) which delicacy could possibly 
interpret as a gratuity, whether tendered as an acknowledgment for 
favours past, or as an inducement for services to come. As I went 
to Ireland so I returned from it, perfectly clean-handed, not hav- 
ing profited my small fortune in the value of a single shilling, ex- 
cept from the fair income of my office arising from the established 

fees 



168 MEMOIRS OF 

fees upon wool-licences, which netted, as well as I can recollect, 
about 3001. per annum, and did not clear my extraordinary ex- 
pences. 

Towards the close of the session the Lord Lieutenant took 
occasion one morning, when I waited upon him with his private 
accounts, to express his satisfaction in my services, adding that he 
wished to mark his particular approbation of me by obtaining for 
me the rank of baronet : a title, he observed, very fit in his opinion 
for me to hold, as my father would in all probability be a bishop, 
and had a competent estate, which would descend to me. I con- 
fess it was not the sort of favour I expected, and struck me as a 
gaudy insubstantial offer, which as a mere addition to my name 
without any to my circumstances, was, (as my friend Isted after- 
wards described it) a mere mouthful of moonshine. I received the 
tender notwithstanding with all due respect, and only desired time 
to turn it in my thoughts. I was now the father of three children, 
for I had a daughter born in the castle, and when I found my fa- 
ther and my whole family adverse to the proposal, I signified to 
Lord Halifax my wish to decline the honour he had been pleased 
to offer to me : I certainly did not make my court to him by this 
refusal, and vanity, if I had listened to it, would in this instance 
have taught me better policy, but to err on the side of moderation 
and humility is an error, that ought not to be repented of; though 
I have reason to think from ensuing circumstances, that it contri- 
buted to weaken an interest, which so many engines were at work 
to extinguish. In fact I plainly saw it was not for me to expect 

any 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 169 

any lasting tenure in the share I then possessed of favour, unless I 
kept it up by sacrifices I was determined not to make ; in short I 
had not that worldly wisdom, which could prevail with me to pay 
my homage in that quarter, from which my patron derived his ruin, 
and purchase by disgraceful attentions a continuance of that claim 
to his protection and regard, which I had earned by long and faith- 
ful services for ten years past, (the third part of my life) without 
intermission, and for the longer half of that time without considera- 
tion or reward. 

As sure as ever my history brings me to the mention of that 
fatal step, which took me out of the path I was in, and turned me 
from the prosecution of those peaceful studies, to which I was so 
cordially devoted, and which were leading me to a profession, 
wherein some that went before me had distinguished themselves 
with such credit, so sure am I to feel at my heart a pang, that 
wounds me with regret and self-reproach for having yielded to a 
delusion at the inexperienced age of nineteen, since which I have 
seen more than half a century go by, every day of which has 
only served to strengthen more and more the full conviction of my 
error. 

Hamilton, who in the English parliament got the nick-name of 
Single-speech, spoke well, but not often, in the Irish House of 
Commons. He had a promptitude of thought, and a rapid flow 
of well-conceived matter, with many other requisites, that only 
seemed waiting for opportunities to establish his reputation as an 
orator. He had a striking countenance, a graceful carriage, great 

z self-possession 



170 MEMOIRS OF 

self-possession and personal courage : he was not easily put out of 
his way by any of those unaccommodating repugnances, that men 
of weaker nerves or more tender consciences might have stumbled 
at, or been checked by; he could mask the passions, that were 
natural to him, and assume those, that did not belong to him : he 
was indefatigable, meditative, mysterious; his opinions were the 
result of long labour and much reflection, but he had the art of 
setting them forth as if they were the starts of ready genius and a 
quick perception : he had as much seeming steadiness as a partisan 
could stand in need of, and all the real flexibility, that could suit 
his purpose, or advance his interest. He would fain have retained 
his connexion with Edmund Burke, and associated him to his poli- 
tics, for he well knew the value of his talents, but in that object he 
was soon disappointed : the genius of Burke was of too high a cast 
to endure debasement. 

The bishopric of Elphin became vacant, and was offered to 
Doctor Crane, who, though moderately beneficed in England, 
withstood the temptation of that valuable mitre, and disinterest- 
edly declined it. This was a decisive instance of the purity as well 
as moderation of his mind, for had he not disdained all ideas of 
negociation in church preferments, he might have accepted the see 
of Elphin, and traded with it in England, as others have done both 
before and since his time. He was not a man of this sort ; he re- 
turned to his prebendal house at Westminster in the little Cloysters, 
and some years before his death resided in his parsonage house at 
Sutton, a living given him by Sir Roger Burgoyne, near to which I 

had 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 171 

had a house, from which I paid him frequent visits, and with un- 
speakable concern saw that excellent man resign himself with pati- 
ence truly christian to the dreadful and tormenting visitation of a 
cancer in his face. I was at my house at Tetworth near Sutton 
in Bedfordshire, when he rode over to me one morning, ancl com- 
plained of a soreness on his lip, which he said he had hurt in shav- 
ing himself; it was hardly discernible, but alas ! it contained the 
seeds of that dire disease, and from that moment kept spreading 
over his face with excruciating agony, which allowed him no re- 
pose, till it laid him in his grave. 

By his refusal of Elphin, Doctor Oswald was promoted to an 
inferior bishopric, and my father thereby stood next upon the roll 
for a mitre : in the mean time he formed his friendships in Ireland 
with some of the most respectable characters, and made a visit, ac- 
companied by my mother, to Doctor Pocock, Bishop of Ossory, at 
his. episcopal house in Kilkenny. That celebrated oriental traveller 
and author was a man of mild manners and primitive simplicity : 
having given the world a full detail of his researches in Egypt, he 
seemed to hold himself excused from saying any thing more about 
them, and observed in general an obdurate taciturnity. In his car- 
riage and deportment he appeared to have contracted something of 
the Arab character, yet there was no austerity in his silence, and 
though his air was solemn, his temper was serene. When we were 
on our road to Ireland, I saw from the windows of the inn at 
Daventry a cavalcade of horsemen approaching on a gentle trot, 
headed by an elderly chief in clerical attire, who was followed by 

z 2 five 



172 MEMOIRS OF 

five servants at distances geometrically measured and most precisely 
maintained, and who upon entering the inn proved to be this dis- 
tinguished prelate, conducting his horde with the phlegmatic pati- 
ence of a Scheik. 

I found the state of society in Dublin very different from what 
I had observed in London; the professions more intermixt, and 
ranks more blended ; in the great houses I met a promiscuous as- 
sembly of politicians, lawyers, soldiers and divines ; the profusion 
of their tables struck me with surprise ; nothing that I had seen in 
England could rival the Polish magnificence of Primate Stone, or 
the Parisian luxury of Mr. Clements. The style of Dodington was 
stately, but there was a watchful and well-regulated oeconomy over 
all, that here seemed out of sight and out of mind. The profes- 
sional gravity of character maintained by our English dignitaries was 
here laid aside, and in several prelatical houses the mitre was so 
mingled with, the cockade, and the glass circulated so freely, that 
I perceived the spirit of conviviality was by no means excluded 
from the pale of the church of Ireland. 

Primate Stone was at that time in the zenith of his power ; he 
had a great following ; his intellect was as strong as ever, but his 
constitution was in its waine. I had frequent occasions to resort 
to him, and much reason to speak highly of his candour and con- 
descension. No man faced difficulties with greater courage, none 
overcame them with more address : he was formed to hold com- 
mand over turbulent spirits in tempestuous seasons ; for if he could 
not absolutely rule the passions of men, he could artfully rule men 

by 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 1?.3 

by the medium of their passions ; he had great suavity of manners 
when points were to be carried by insinuation and finesse ; but if 
authority was necessarily to be enforced, none could hold it with a 
higher hand : he was an elegant scholar, a consummate politician, 
a very fine gentleman, and in every character seen to more advan- 
tage than in that, which according to his sacred function should 
have been his chief and only object to sustain. 

Doctor Robinson was by Lord Halifax translated from the see 
of Ferns to that of Kildare. I had even then a presentiment that 
we were forwarding his advancement towards the primacy, and 
persuaded m} r self that the successor of Stone would be found in the 
person of the Bishop of Kildare. Of him I shall probably have 
occasion to speak more at large hereafter, for the acquaintance, 
which I had the honour to form with him at this time, was in the 
further course of it ripened into friendship and an intimacy, which 
he never suffered to abate, and I prized too highly to neglect. 

I made but one short excursion from Dublin, and this was to 
the house of that gallant officer Colonel Ford, who perished in his 
passage to India, and who was married to a relation of my wife. 
Having established his fame in the battle of Plassey and several 
other actions, he seated himself at Johnstown in the centre of an 
inveterate bog, but the soil, such as it was, had the recommenda- 
tion to him of being his native soil, and all its deformities vanished 
from his sight. 

I had more than once the amusement of dining at the house of 
that most singular being George Faulkner, where I found myself in 

a company 



174 MEMOIRS OF 

a company so miscellaneously and whimsically classed, that it 
looked more like a fortuitous concourse of oddities, jumbled toge- 
ther from all ranks, orders and descriptions, than the effect of 
invitation and design. Description must fall short in the attempt 
to convey any sketch of that eccentric being to those, who have 
not read him in the notes of Jephson, or seen him in the miinickry 
of Foote, who in his portraits of Faulkner found the only sitter, 
whom his extravagant pencil could not caricature ; for he had a 
solemn intrepidity of egotism, and a daring contempt of absurdity, 
that fairly outfaced imitation, and like Garrick's Ode on Shakes- 
pear, which Johnson said " defied criticism/' so did George in the 
original spirit of his own perfect buffoonery defy caricature. He 
never deigned to join in the laugh he had raised, nor seemed to have 
a feeling of the ridicule he had provoked : at the same time that he 
was pre-eminently and by preference the butt and buffoon of the 
company, he could find openings and opportunities for hits of reta- 
liation, Avhich were such left-handed thrusts as few could parry : 
nobody could foresee where they would fall, nobody of course was 
fore-armed, and as there was in his calculation but one superemi- 
nent character in the kingdom of Ireland, and he the printer of the 
Dublin Journal, rank was no shield against George's arrows, which 
flew where he listed, and fixed or missed as chance directed, he 
cared not about consequences. He gave good meat and excellent 
claret in abundance ; I sate at his table once from dinner till two in 
the morning, whilst George swallowed immense potations with one 
solitary sodden strawberry at the bottom of the glass, which he said 

was 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 175 

was recommended to him by his doctor for its cooling properties. 
He never lost his recollection or equilibrium the whole time, and 
was in excellent foolery; it was a singular coincidence, that there 
was a person in company, who had received his reprieve at the 
gallows, and the very judge, who had passed sentence of death 
upon him. This did not in the least disturb the harmony of the 
society, nor embarrass any human creature present. All went off 
perfectly smooth, and George, adverting to an original portrait of 
Dean Swift, which hung in his room, told us abundance of excel- 
lent and interesting anecdotes of the Dean and himself with minute 
precision and an importance irresistibly ludicrous. There was also 
a portrait of his late lady Mrs. Faulkner, which either made the 
painter or George a liar, for it was frightfully ugly, whilst he 
swore she was the most divine object in creation. In the mean time 
he took credit to himself for a few deviations in point of gallantry, 
and asserted that he broke his leg in flying from the fury of an 
enraged husband, whilst Foote constantly maintained that he fell 
down an area with a tray of meat upon his shoulder, when he was 
journeyman to a butcher: I believe neither of them spoke the truth. 
George prosecuted Foote for lampooning him on the stage of 
Dublin ; his counsel the prime serjeant compared him to Socrates 
and his libeller to Aristophanes ; this I believe was all that George 
got by his course of law ; but he was told he had the best of the 
bargain in the comparison, and sate down contented under the 
shadow of his laurels. In process of time he became an alderman; 
I paid my court to him in that character, but I thought he was 

rati km- 



176 MEMOIRS OE 

rather marred than mended by his dignity. George grew grave and 
sentimental, and sentiment and gravity sate as ill upon George, as 
a gown and square cap would upon a monkey. 

Mrs. Dancer, then in her prime and very beautiful, was acting 
with Barry at the Crow-Street theatre, and Miss Elliot, who had 
played in Mr. Bentley's Wishes, came over with the recommenda- 
tion of Mr. Arthur Murphy, who interested himself much in her 
success : this young uneducated girl had great natural talents, and 
played the part of Maria in her patron's farce of The Citizen with 
admirable spirit and effect. The whimsical mock-opera of Midas 
was first brought upon the Dublin stage in this season, and had all 
the protection, which the castle patronage could bestow, and that 
could not be more than its pleasantry and originality deserved. 

When the time for our departure was in near approach, the 
Lord Lieutenant expressed his wish that I would take the conduct 
of his daughters and the ladies of his family on their journey home, 
whilst he went forward, and would expect us at Bushy Park. Cir- 
cumstanced as I was, I could not undertake the charge of his family 
without abandoning that of my own, which I did with the utmost 
regret, though my brother in law Captain Ridge kindly offered 
himself to conduct his sister and her infant to the place of their 
destination, and accordingly embarked with them in a pacquet 
for Holyhead some days before my departure. Painful as this 
parting was, I had yet the consolation of surrendering those objects 
of my affection to the care of him, whom I would have chosen out 
of all men living for the trust. They were to repose for a few days 

at 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 177 

at a house called Tyringham, within a short distance of Newport 
Pagncll, which I had taken of the heir of the Bakewell family. It 
was a large and venerable old mansion, situated on the banks of 
the river Ouse, and had caught my eye as I was on* my road to 
Ireland : understanding it was furnished and to be let, I crossed 
the river, and in a few minutes conversation with the steward agreed 
to take it, and in this I was in some degree biassed by the conside- 
ration of its near neighbourhood to Lord Halifax at Horton. It 
was a hasty bargain, but one of the cheapest ever made, and I had 
no occasion at any time after to repent of it. 

When we arrived at Bushey Park, and I had surrendered my 
charge to Lord Halifax, I lost no further time, but hastened to my 
wife, who was then in Hampshire at her father's, where the children 
we left behind us had been kindly harboured : them indeed I found 
in perfect health, but that and every other joy attendant on my 
return was at once extinguished in the afflicting persuasion, that I 
had only arrived in time to take a last leave of my dying wife, who 
was then in the crisis of a most violent fever, exhausted, senseless 
and scarce alive. Many florid writers would seize the opportunity 
of describing scenes of this sort; I shall decline it. It was my 
happy lot to see her excellent constitution surmount the shock, and 
to witness her recovery in her native air by the -blessing of Provi- 
dence and the unwearied attentions of her hospitable parents. As 
soon as she was re-established in her health, we removed with our 
children to Tyringham, where my wife had left her infant fellow 
traveller in the care of an excellent young woman, who from the 

a a day 



178 MEMOIRS OF 

day of our marriage to the day of her death lived with me and my 
family, faithfully attached and strictly fulfilling every part of her 
duty. 

A short time before Lord Halifax quitted the government of 
Ireland, in which he was succeeded by the Duke of Northumber- 
land, a vacancy happened in the bench of bishops, and my father 
was promoted to the see of Clonfert. This vacancy fell so close 
upon the expiration of Lord Halifax's government, that great efforts 
were made and considerable interest exerted to wrest the nomina- 
tion out of his lordship's patronage, and throw it into the disposal 
of his successor ; it was proposed to recompense my father by pre- 
ferment of some other description ; but this was firmly resisted by 
Lord Halifax, and the mitre was bestowed upon one, who wore it 
to the last hour of his life with unblemished reputation, honoured, 
beloved, and I may sa} T (almost without a figure) adored by the people 
of Ireland for his benevolence, his equity, his integrity and every 
virtue, that could make him dear to his fellow-creatures, and ac- 
ceptable to his Creator. 

The expectant, who, if I was rightly informed, would have ob- 
tained the bishopric of Clonfert in the event of my father's being 
deprived of it, has had reason to felicitate himself on his disap- 
pointment, if, as I just now observed, I am not mistaken in believ- 
ing Doctor Markham was the person, whose happy destiny sent 
my father to Ireland, and reserved him for better fortune at home, 
and higher dignities most worthily bestowed and most honourably 
enjoyed. 

My 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 179 

My father in the mean time had returned to his vicarage of 
Fulham, and sate down without repining at the issue of his expe- 
dition, which now seemed to close upon him without any prospect 
of success, when I hastened to impart to him the intelligence I had 
just received from Secretary Hamilton, whom I had accidentally 
crossed upon in Parliament-Street. He received it in his calm 
manner, modestly remarking, that his talents were not turned to 
public life, nor did he foresee any material advantages likely to ac- 
crue to such as belonged to him from his promotion to an Irish 
bishopric; it was not consistent, he said, with his principles to 
avail himself of his patronage in that country to the exclusion of 
the clergy of his diocese, and of course he must deny himself the 
gratification of serving his friends and relations in England, if any 
such should solicit him. This did happen in more instances than 
one, and I can witness with what pain he withstood requests, 
which he would have been so happy to have complied with ; but 
his conscience was a rule to him, and he never deviated from it in 
a single instance. He further observed in the course of this con- 
versation with me what I have before noticed in my remarks upon 
Bishop Cumberland's appropriation of his episcopal revenue, and, 
alluding to that rule as laid down by his grandfather, expressed his 
approbation of it, and said, that though he could not aspire to the 
most distant comparison with him in greater matters, yet he trusted 
he should not be found degenerate in principle ; and certainly he 
did not trust in himself without reason. In conclusion he said, 
that having visited Ireland, and formed many pleasing and respec- 

a a 2 table 



180 MEMOIRS OF 

table connexions there, he would quietly wait the event without 
embarrassing Lord Halifax with any solicitation, and when he 
thought he perceived me in a disposition to be not quite so tran- 
quil and sedentary in the business, he positively forbade me to 
make any stir, or give Lord Halifax any trouble on his account — 
" You have shewn your moderation," added he, " in declining the 
" title, that was offered to you ; let me at least betray no eager- 
" ness in courting that, which may, or may not, devolve upon me. 
" Had it not been for you it would never have come under my 
" contemplation; I should still have remained parson of Stanwick, 
" but the same circumstances, that have drawn you from your stu- 
" dies, have taken me from my solitude, and if you are thus zea- 
" lous to transport me and your mother into another kingdom, I 
" hope you will be not less solicitous to visit and console us with 
" the sight of you, when we are there." 

I bless God I have not to reproach myself with neglecting this 
tender and paternal injunction. Not a year passed during my 
father's residence in Ireland that I did not happily devote some 

months of it to the fulfilment of this duty, always accompanied by 

i 

my wife, and, with the exception of one time only, by some part of 
my young family. 

In a few days after this conversation I was authorized to an- 
nounce to my father his nomination to the bishopric of Clonfert. 
He lost no time in arranging his affairs, and preparing for his de- 
parture with my mother and my younger sister, then unmarried. 
Lord Halifax in the mean time had received the Seals of Secretary 

of 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 181 

of State; he had to name one Under-Secretary and his choice 
fell upon a gentleman of the name of Sedgevvicke, who had 
attended upon him to Ireland in the capacity of Master of the 
Horse, and on this promotion vacated an employ, which he held 
in the Office of Trade and Plantations under the denomination of 
Clerk of the Reports. He was a civil, mannerly, and, as far as 
suited him, an obsequious little gentleman ; fond of business, and 
very busy in it, be it what it might ; his training had been in 
office, and his education stamped his character with marks, that 
could not be mistaken : he well knew how to follow up preferment 
to its source, and though the waters of that spring were not very 
pure, he drank devoutly at the fountain head, and was rewarded 
for his perseverance. 

I could not be said to suffer any disappointment on the occa- 
sion of this gentleman's promotion : I had due warning of the alter- 
native, that presented itself to my choice. I had a holding on 
Lord Halifax, founded on my father's merits, and a long and faith- 
ful attachment on my own part; but as I had hitherto kept the 
straight and fair track in following his fortunes, I would not consent 
to deviate into indirect roads, and disgrace myself in the eyes of 
his and my own connexions, who would have marked my conduct 
with deserved contempt. In attending upon him to Ireland I had 
the example of Doctor Crane to refer to, and I had his advice and 
approbation on this occasion for tendering my services, when he 
received the seals, as a point of duty, though not with any expec- 
tation of my tender being accepted. The answer was exactly what 

I looked 



182 MEMOIRS OF 

I looked to receive — cool in its terms, repulsive in its purport — 
I was not Jit for every situation — Nothing could be more true, nei- 
ther did I oppose a single word to the conviction it carried with it ; 
in that I acquiesced respectfully and silently ; but I said a few 
words in thankful acknowledgment of the favour he had conferred 
upon my father, and for that, which I had received in my own 
person, namely the Crown- Agency of Nova Scotia. Perhaps he 
did not quite expect to have disposed of me with so little trouble 
to himself, for my manner seemed to waken some sensations, which 
led him to dilate a little on his motives for declining to employ 
me, inasmuch as I did not speak French. This also was not less 
true than his first remark, for as certainly as I was not fit for all 
situations, so surely was I unfit for this, if speaking French fluently, 
(though I understood it as a language) was a qualification not to 
be dispensed with. In short I admitted this objection in its full 
force, well persuaded, that if I had possessed the elegance and 
perfection of Voltaire himself in that language, I should not have 
been a step nearer to the office in question. When we know our- 
selves to be put aside for reasons, that do not touch the character, 
but will not truly be revealed, we do well to acquiesce in the very 
first civil, though evasive, apology, that is passed upon us in the 
way of explanation. 

Finding myself thus cast out of employ, and Mr. Sedgewicke 
in possession of his office, I began to think it might be worth my 
while to endeavour at succeeding him in his situation at the Board 
,of Trade, and submit to follow him, as he had once followed and 

now 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 183 

now passed me in this road to preferment. After above eleven 
years attendance, my profit was the sole attainment of a place of 
two hundred pounds per annum, my loss was that of the expencc 
I had put my father to for my support and maintenance in a style 
of life, very different from that in which I was found ; this expence 
I had the consolation of being enabled to replace to my father upon 
the receipt of my wife's fortune ; but by this act of justice and 
duty so gratifying to my conscience the balance upon 3000/. which 
was the portion allotted to Miss Ridge, was very inconsiderable 
when it reached me. I had already three children, and the pros- 
pect of an increasing family ; my father's bishopric was not likely 
to benefit me, neither could it be considered as a compensation for 
my services, inasmuch as the past exertions of his influence and 
popularity in Northamptonshire might fairly give him a claim to a 
favour not less than that of appointing him second chaplain to 
Doctor Oswald, who was a perfect stranger to his lordship, till 
introduced and recommended by his brother James. These consi- 
derations induced me to hope I could not be thought a very greedy 
or presumptuous expectant, when I ventured to solicit him in com- 
petition with a gentleman, who had only been in his immediate 
service as Master of the Horse for one session in Ireland, and at 
the same time they served as motives with me for endeavouring to 
succeed that gentleman, whose office, if I could obtain it, would 
be an addition to my income of two hundred per annum. The Earl 
of Hillsborough was first Lord of Trade and Plantations, and, 
being an intimate friend of Lord Halifax, was I presumed not 

indisposed 



184 MEMOIRS OF 

indisposed towards me. I thereupon went to Bushey Park to wait 
upon Lord Halifax, and communicated to him the idea, which had 
occurred to me, of making suit for the office, that Mr. Sedgewicke 
had vacated. He received this intimation in a manner, that did 
not merely denote embarrassment, it made it doubtful to me whe- 
ther he meant to take it up as matter of offence, or turn it off as 
matter of indifference ; for some time he seemed inclined to put an 
interpretation upon the measure proposed, which certainly it could 
not bear, and to consider it as an abandonment on my part of a 
connexion, that had uninterruptedly subsisted for so many years. 
When a very few words on my part convinced him that this charge 
could not lie against me, he stated it in another view as a degrada- 
tion, which he was surprised I could think of submitting to, after 
the situation I had stood in with respect to him : this was easily 
answered, and in terms, that could not give offence ; thus whilst I 
was guarding my expressions from any semblance of disgust, and 
his lordship was holding a language, that could not come from his 
heart, we broke up the conference without any other decision, than 
that of referring it to my own choice and discretion, as a measure 
he neither advised nor opposed. 

As it was from this interview with the noble person, to whom I 
had attached myself for so long a term of years, that my future 
line in life took a new direction, I could not pass it over in silence; 
but though my mind retains the memory of many particulars, which, 
if my own credit only was at stake, I should be forward to relate, 
I shall forbear ; convinced, that when I lost the favour and pro- 
tection 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 185 

tection of that noble person, I had not forfeited his real good opi- 
nion ; of this truth he survived to give, and I to receive, proofs, 
that could not be mistaken. I had known him too intimately not 
to know, in the very moment, of which I have been speaking, that 
what he was by accident, he was not by nature. I am persuaded 
he was formed to be a good man, he might also have been a great 
one : his mind was large, his spirit active, his ambition honorabie : 
he had a carriage noble and imposing ; his first approach attracted 
notice, his consequent address ensured respect : if his talents were 
not quite so solid as some, nor altogether so deep as others, yet 
they were brilliant, popular and made to glitter in the eyes of men: 
splendor was his passion ; his good forture threw opportunities in 
his way to have supported it; his ill fortune blasted all those ener- 
gies, which should have been reserved for the crisis of his public 
fame ; the. first offices of the state, the highest honours, which his 
sovereign could bestow, were showered upon him, when the spring 
of his mind was broken, and his genius, like a vessel overloaded 
with treasure, but far gone in decay, was only precipitated to ruin 
by the very freight, that in its better days would have crowned it 
with prosperity and riches. 

I now addressed a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, tendering 
my humble services in Mr. Sedgewicke's room, and was accepted 
without hesitation. Thus I entered upon an office, the duties of 
which consisted of taking minutes of the debates and proceedings 
at the Board, and preparing for their approbation and signature 
such reports, as they should direct to be drawn up for his Majesty, 

b b or 



186 MEMOIRS OF 

or the Council, and, on some occasions, for the Board of Treasury, 
or Secretaries of State. It was at most an office of no great labour, 
but as Mr. Pownall, now actual Secretary, was much in the habit 
of digesting these reports himself, my task was greatly lightened, 
and I had leisure to address myself to other studies, and indulge 
my propensities towards composition in whatever way they might 
incline me to employ them. 

Bickerstaff having at this time brought out his operas of Love in 
a Village and The Maid of the Mill with great success, some friends 
pursuaded me to attempt a drama of that sort, and engaged Simp- 
son, conductor of the band at Covent Garden and a performer on 
the hautboy, to compile the airs and adapt them to the stage. With 
very little knowledge of stage-effect, and as little forethought about 
plot, incident, or character, I sate down to write, and soon pro- 
duced a thing in three acts, which I named the Summer's Tale, 
though it was a tale about nothing and very indifferently told ; 
however, being a vehicle for some songs, not despicably written, 
and some of these very well set, it was carried by my friends to 
Beard, then manager of the theatre, and accepted for representa- 
tion. My friends, who were critics merely in music, took as little 
concern about revising the drama, as I took pains in writing it: 
they brought me the music of old songs, and I adapted words to it, 
and wove them into the piece, as I could . I saw however how very 
ill this plan was adapted for any credit, that could be expected to 
accrue to me from my share in it, and to mark how little confidence 
I placed in the composition of the drama, I affixed as motto to the 

/ title 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 187 

title page the following words — Vox, et prceterea nihil.— Abel fur- 
nished the overture, Bach, Doctor Arne and Arnold supplied some 
original compositions ; Beard, Miss Brent, (then in high reputa- 
tion) Mr. and Mrs. Mattocks and Shuter filled the principal cha- 
racters. It was performed nine or ten nights to moderate houses 
without opposition, and very deservedly without much applause, 
except what the execution of the vocal performers, and some bril- 
liant compositions justly obtained; but even with these it was ra- 
ther over-loaded, and was not sufficiently contrasted and relieved 
by familiar airs. 

The fund for the support of decayed actors being then recently 
established by the company of Covent Garden theatre, I appro- 
priated the receipts of my ninth night to that benevolent institution, 
which the conductors were pleased to receive with much good will, 
and have honoured me with their remembrance at their annual au- 
dits ever since. 

The Summer's Tale was published by Mr. Dodsley, and as I 
received no complaint from him on account of the sale, I hope 
that liberal purchaser of the copy had no particular reason to be 
discontented with his bargain. 

Bickerstaff, who had established himself in the public favour 
by the success of his operas above-mentioned, seemed to consider 
me as an intruder upon his province, with whom he was to keep no 
terms, and he set all engines of abuse to work upon me and my 
poor drama, whilst it was yet in rehearsal, not repressing his acri- 
mony till it had been before the public ; when to have discussed it 

b b 2 in 



188 MEMOIRS OF 

in the spirit of fair criticism might have afforded him full matter of 
triumph, without convicting him of any previous malice or person- 
ality against an unoffending author. I was no sooner put in pos- 
session of the proofs, against him, which were exceedingly gross, 
than I remonstrated by letter to him against his uncandid proceed- 
ing ; I have no copy of that letter ; I wish I had preserved it, as it 
would be in proof to show that my disposition to live in harmony 
with my contemporaries was, at my very outset as a writer for the 
stage, what it has uniformly been to the present hour, and that, 
although this attack was one of the most virulent and unfair ever 
made upon me, yet I no otherwise appealed against it, than by 
telling him, " That if his contempt of my performance was really 
" what he professed it to be, he had no need to fear me as a rival, 
" and might relax from his intemperance; on the contrary, if alarm 
" for his own interest had any share in the motives for his animosity, 
" I was perfectly ready to purchase his peace of mind and good will 
" by the sacrifice of those emoluments, which might eventually 
" accrue from my nights, in any such way as might relieve his anx- 
" iety, and convince him of my entire disinterestedness in com- 
" mencing author ; adding in conclusion, that he might assure him- 
" self he would never hear of me again as a writer of operas." This 
I can perfectly recollect was the purport of my letter, which I 
dictated in the belief of what was reported to me as an apology for 
his conduct, and entirely ascribed his hostility to his alarm on the 
score of interest, and not to the evil temper of his mind. This was 
the interpretation I put upon what Mr. Bickerstaff had written of 

me, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 189 

me, and my real motive for what I wrote to him : I understood he 
was wholly dependant on the stage, and that the necessity of his 
circumstances made him bitter against any one, who stept forward 
to divide the favour of the public with him. To insult his poverty, 
or presume on my advantage over him in respect of circumstances, 
was a thought, that never found admission to my heart, nor did 
BickerstafF himself so construe my letter, or suspect me of such 
baseness ; for Mr. Garrick afterwards informed me that BickerstafF 
shewed this letter to him as an appeal to his feelings of such a na- 
ture, as ought to put him to silence ; and when Mr. Garrick repre- 
sented to him, that he also saw it in that light, he did not scruple 
to confess that his attack had been unfair, and that he should never 
repeat it against me or my productions. I led him into no further 
temptations, for whilst he continued to supply the stage with mu- 
sical pieces, I turned my thoughts to dramas of another cast, and 
we interfered no longer with each other's labours. 

One day as I was leaving the theatre after a rehearsal of the 
Summer's Tale, I was met by Mr. Smith, then engaged at Covent 
Garden, and whom I had known at the University, as an Under- 
graduate of Saint John's College. We had of course some conver- 
sation, during which he had the kindness to remonstrate with me 
upon the business I was engaged in, politely saying, that I ought 
to turn my talents to compositions of a more independant and a 
higher character ; predicting to me, that I should reap neither fame 
nor satisfaction in the operatic department, and demanding of me, 
in a tone of encouragement, why I would not rather aim at writing 

a good 



190 MEMOIRS OF 

a good corned j, than dabbling in these sing-song pieces. The ani- 
mating spirit of this friendly remonstrance, and the full persuasion 
that he predicted truly of the character and consequences of my 
undertaking then on foot, made a sensible impression on my mind, 
and in the warmth of the moment I formed my resolution to at- 
tempt the arduous project he had pointed out. If my old friend 
and contemporary ever reads this page, perhaps he can call to 
mind the conversation I allude to ; though he has not the same 
reasons to keep in his remembrance this circumstance, as I have, 
who was the party favoured and obliged, yet I hope he will at all 
events believe that I record it truly as to the fact, and gratefully 
for the effects of it. As his friend, I have lived with him, and 
shared his gentlemanly hospitality ; as his author, I have witnessed 
his abilities, and profited b} r his support ; and though I have lost 
sight of him ever since his retirement from the stage, yet I have 
ever retained at heart an interest in his welfare, and as he and I are 
too nearly of an age to flatter ourselves, that we have any very long 
continuance to come upon the stage of this life, I beg leave to make 
this public profession of my sincere regard for him, and to pay the 
tribute of my plaudits now before he makes his final exit, and the 
curtain drops. 

Before I had ushered my melodious nonsense to the audience, 
I had clearly discovered the weakness of the tame and lifeless fable, 
on which I had founded it ; there were still some scenes between 
the characters of Henry and Amelia, which were tolerably con- 
ceived, and had preserved themselves a place in the good opinion of 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 191 

the audience by the simplicity of the style, and the address of Mrs. 
Mattocks and Mr. Dyer, to whom those parts were allotted. It 
was thereupon thought adviseable to cut down the Summer's Tale 
to an after-piece of two acts, and exhibit it in the next season under 
the title of Amelia. In this state it stood its ground, and took its 
turn with very tolerable success " behind the foremost and before 
" the last." Simpson published the music in a collection, and I 
believe he got home pretty well upon the sale of it. The good 
judges of that time thought it good music, but the better judges of 
this time would probably think it good for nothing. 

In the summer of this year, as soon as the Board of Trade broke 
up for their usual recess, I went with my wife and part of my young 
family to pay my duty and fulfil my promise to my father and 
mother in Ireland. They waited for us in Dublin, where my father 
had taken the late Bishop of Meath's house in Kildare-Street, next 
door to the Duke of Leinster's. When we had reposed ourselves 
for a few days, after the fatigues of a turbulent passage, we all set 
off for Clonfert in the county of Galway. Every bod} r , who has 
travelled in Ireland, and witnessed the wretched accommodation of 
the inns, particularly in the west, knows that it requires some fore- 
cast and preparation to conduct a large family on their journey. It 
certainly is as different from travelling in England as possible, and 
not much unlike travelling in Spain ; but with my father for our 
provider, whose appointments of servants and equipage were ever 
excellent, we could feel tew wants, and arrived in good time at 
our journey's end, where upon the banks of the great river Shannon, 

in 



192 MEMOIRS OF 

in a nook of land, on all sides save one surrounded by an impas- 
sable bog, we found the episcopal residence, by courtesy called 
palace, and the church of Clonfert, by custom called cathedral. 
This humble residence was not devoid of comfort and convenience, 
for it contained some tolerable lodging rooms, and was capacious 
enough to receive me and mine without straitening the family. A 
garden of seven acres, well planted and disposed into pleasant 
walks, kept in the neatest order, was attached to the house, and at 
the extremity of a broad gravel walk in front stood the cathedral. 
Within this boundary the scene was cheerful ; all without it was 
either impenetrable bog, or a dreary undressed country; but 
whilst all was harmony, hospitality and affection underneath the 
parental roof, " the mind was its own place," and every hour was 
happy. My father lived, as he had ever done, beloved by all 
around him ; the same benevolent and generous spirit, which had 
endeared him to his neighbours and parishioners in England, now 
began to make the like impressions on the hearts of a people as far 
different in character, as they were distant in place, from those, 
whom he had till now been concerned with. Without descending 
from the dignity he had to support, and condescending to any of 
the paltry modes of courting popularity, I instantly perceived how 
high he stood in their esteem ; these observations I was perfectly in 
the way to make, for I had no forms to keep, and was withal un- 
commonly delighted with their wild eccentric humours, mixing with 
all ranks and descriptions of men, to my infinite amusement. If 
I have been successful in my dramatic sketches of the Irish cha- 
racter, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 193 

racter, it was here I studied it in its purest and most primitive 
state; from high to low it was now under my view. Though I 
strove to present it in its fairest and best light upon the stage, 
truth obliges me to confess there was another side of the picture, 
which could not have been contemplated without affright and hor- 
ror! Atrocities and violences, which set all law and justice at 
defiance, were occasionally committed in this savage and licentious 
quarter, and suffered to pass over with impunity. In the neigh- 
bouring town of Eyre Court, they had by long usage assumed to 
themselves certain local and self-constituted privileges and exemp- 
tions, which rendered it unapproachable by any officers or emissa- 
ries of the civil power, who were universally denounced as mad- 
dogs, and subjected to be treated as such, and even put to death 
with as little ceremony or remorse. I speak of what actually oc- 
curred within my own immediate knowledge, whilst I resided with 
my father, in more instances than one, and those instances would 
be shocking to relate. To stem these daring outrages, and to stand 
in opposition to these barbarous customs, was an undertaking, that 
demanded both philanthropy and courage, and my father of course 
was the very man to attempt it. Justice and generosity were the 
instruments he employed, and I saw the work of reformation so 
auspiciously begun, and so steadily pursued by him, as convinced 
me that minds the most degenerate may be to a degree reclaimed 
by actions, that come home to their feelings, and are evidently di- 
rected to the sole purposes of amending their manners, and improv- 
ing their condition. To suppose they were a race of beings stupidly 

c c vicious, 



194 MEMOIRS OF 

vicious, devoid of sensibility, and delivered over by their natural 
inertness to barbarism and ignorance, would be the very falsest 
character that could be conceived of them ; it is on the contrary to 
the quickness of their apprehensive faculties, to the precipitancy 
and unrestrained vivacity of their talents and passions, that Ave 
must look for the causes, and in some degree for the excuse of their 
excesses : together with their ferocious propensities there are blend- 
ed and compounded humours so truly comic, eccentricities so pecu- 
liar, and attachments and affections at times so inconceivably ar- 
dent, that it is not possible to contemplate them in their natural 
characters without being diverted by extravagancies, which we 
cannot seriously approve, and captivated by professions, which we 
cannot implicitly give credit to. 

The bishop held a considerable parcel of land, arable and graz- 
ing, in his hands, or more properly speaking in the phrase of the 
country, a large demesne, with a numerous tribe of labourers, gar- 
deners, turf-cutters, herdsmen and handicraft-men of various de- 
nominations. His first object, and that not an easy one to attain, 
was to induce them to pursue the same methods of husbandry as 
were practised in England, and to observe the same neat and 
cleanly course of cultivation. This was a great point gained ; they 
began it with unwillingness, and watched it with suspicion : their 
idle neighbours, who were without employ, ridiculed the work, and 
predicted that their hay stacks would take fire, and their corn be 
rendered unfit for use; but in the further course of time, when they 
experienced the advantages of this process, and witnessed the 

striking 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 195 

striking contrast of these productive lands, compared with the 
slovenly grounds around them, they began to acknowledge their 
own errors, and to reform them. With these operations the im- 
provements of their own habitations were contrived to keep pace : 
their cabins soon wore a more comfortable and decent appearance; 
they furnished them with chimnies, and emerged out of the smoke, 
in which they had buried and suffocated their families and them- 
selves. When these old habits were corrected within doors, on the 
outside of every one of them there was to be seen a stack of hay, 
made in the English fashion, thatched and secured from the wea- 
ther, and a lot of potatoes, carefully planted and kept clean, which, 
with a suitable proportion of turf, secured the year's provision both 
for man and beast. When these comforts were placed in their view, 
they were easily led to turn their attention to the better appearance 
of their persons, and this reform was not a little furthered by the 
premium of a Sunday's dinner to all, who should present themselves 
in clean linen and with well-combed hair, Avithout the customary 
addition of a scare-crow wig, so that the swarthy Milesian no longer 
appeared with a yellow wig upon his coal-black hair, nor the yellow 
Dane with a coal-black wig upon his long red locks : the old bar- 
barous custom also of working in a great coat loosely thrown over 
the shoulders, with the sleeves dangling by the sides, was now dis- 
missed, and the bishop's labourers turned into the field, stript to 
their shirts, proud to shew themselves in whole linen, so that in 
them vanity operated as a virtue, and piqued them to excel in in- 
dustry as much as they did in appearance. As for me, I was so 

c c 2 delighted 



196 MEMOIRS OF 

delighted with contemplating a kind of new creation, of which my 
father was the author, that I devoted the greatest portion of my 
time to his works, and had full powers to prosecute his good inten- 
tions to whatever extent I might find opportunities for carrying 
them. This commission was to me most gratifying, nor have any 
hours in my past life been more truly satisfactory, than those in 
which I was thus occupied as the administrator of his unbounded 
benevolence to his dependant fellow creatures. My father, being 
one of the governors of the Linen Board, availed himself also of 
the opportunity for introducing a branch of that valuable manu- 
facture into his neighbourhood, and a great number of spinning- 
wheels were distributed, and much good linen made in consequence 
of that measure. The superintendance of this improving manufac- 
ture furnished an interesting occupation to my mother's active 
mind, and it flourished under her care. 

In the month of October my father removed his family to Dub- 
lin, and from thence I returned to resume my official duty at the 
Board of Trade. In the course of this winter I brought out my first 
comedy, entitled The Brothers, at Covent Garden theatre, then 
under the direction of Mr. Harris and his associates, joint proprie- 
tors with him. I had written this play, after my desultory manner, 
at such short periods of time and leisure, as I could snatch from 
business or the society of my family, and sometimes even in the 
midst of both, for I could then form whole scenes in my memory, 
and afterwards write them down, when opportunity offered ; neither 
was it any interruption, if my children were playing about me in 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 197 

the room. I believe I was indebted to Mr. Harris singly for the 
kind reception, which this offer met ; for if I rightly remember what 
passed on that occasion, my Brothers were not equally acceptable 
to his brethren as to him. He took it however with all its respon- 
sibility, supported it and cast it with the best strength of his com- 
pany. Woodward in the part of Ironsides, and Yates in that of 
Sir Benjamin Dove, were actors, that could keep their scene alive, 
if any life was in it : Quick, then a young performer, took the 
part of Skiff, and my friend Smith, who had prompted me to the 
undertaking, was the young man of the piece ; Mrs. Green perform- 
ed Lady Dove, and Mrs. Yates was the heroine Sophia. 

The play was successful, and I believe I may say that it brought 
some advantage to the theatre as well as some reputation to its au- 
thor. It has been much played on the provincial stages, and occa- 
sionally revived on the royal ones. There are still such excellent 
successors in the lines of Yates and Woodward to be found in both 
theatres, that perhaps it would not even now be a loss of labour, if 
they took it up afresh. I recollect that I borrowed the hint of Sir 
Benjamin's assumed valour upon being forced into a rencounter 
from one of the old comedies, and if I conjecture rightly it is The 
Little French Lawyer. It may be said of this comedy, as it may of 
most, it has some merits and some faults ; it has its scenes that tell, 
and its scenes that tire ; a start of character, such as that of the 
tame Sir Benjamin, is always a striking incident in the construction 
of a drama, and when a revolution of that sort can be brought 
about without violence to nature, and for purposes essential to the 

plot, 



198 MEMOIRS OF 

plot, it is a point of art well worthy the attention and study of a 
writer for the stage. The comedy of Rule a Wife and have a Wife, 
and particularly that of Massinger's City Madam, are strong in- 
stances in point. It is to be wished that some man of experience 
in stage effect would adapt the latter of these comedies to represen- 
tation. 

Garrick was in the house at the first night of The Brothers, and 
as I was planted in the back seat of an upper box opposite to where 
he sate, I could not but remark his action of surprise when Mrs. 
Yates opened the epilogue with the following lines — 
" Who but hath seen the celebrated strife, 
" Where Reynolds calls the canvass into life, 
" And 'twixt the tragic and the comic muse, 
" Courted of both, and dubious where to chuse, 
" Th' immortal actor stands — ? 
My friend Fitzherbert, father of Lord St. Helen, was then with 
Garrick, and came from his box to me across the house to tell me, 
that the immortal actor had been taken by surprise, but was not 
displeased with the unexpected compliment from an author, with 
whom he had supposed he did not stand upon the best terms ; al- 
luding no doubt to his transaction with Lord Halifax respecting 
The Banishment of Cicero. From this time Mr. Garrick took pains 
to cultivate an acquaintance, which he had hitherto neglected, and 
after Mr. Fitzherbert had brought us together at his house, we in- 
terchanged visits, and it is nothing more than natural to confess I 
was charmed with his company and flattered by his attentions. I 

had 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 199 

had a house in Queen- Ann-Street, and he then lived in Southamp- 
ton-Street Covent Garden, where 1 frequently went to him and 
sometimes accompanied him to his pleasant villa at Hampton. In 
the mean time, whilst I was thus fortunate in conciliating to myself 
one eminent person by my epilogue, I soon discovered to my regret 
how many I had offended by my prologue. A host of newspaper- 
writers fell upon me for the pertness and general satire of that in- 
cautious composition, and I found myself assailed from various 
quarters with unmitigated acrimony. I made no defence, and the 
only one I had to make would hardly have brought me off, for I 
could have opposed nothing to their charge against me, but the 
simple and sincere assertion that I alluded personally* to no man, 
and being little versed in the mock-modesty of modern addresses to 
the audience, took the old style of prologue for my model, and put 
a bold countenance upon a bold adventure. Numerous examples 
were before me of prologues arrogant in the extreme ; Johnson 
abounds in such instances, but I did not advert sufficiently to the 
change, which time had wrought in the circumstances of the dra- 
matic poet, and how much it behoved him to lower his tone in the 
hearing of his audience: neither did Smith, who was speaker of the 
prologue, and an experienced actor, warn me of any danger in the 
lines he undertook to deliver. In short mine was the error of inex- 
perience, and their efforts to rebuff me only gave a fresh spring to 
my exertions, for I can truly say, that, although I have been an- 
noyed by detraction, it never had the property of depressing me. 
I was silly enough to send this comedy into the world with a dedi- 

catioD 



200 MEMOIRS OF 

cation to the Duke of Grafton, a man, with whom I had not the 
slightest acquaintance, nor did I seek to establish any upon the 
merit of this address : he was Chancellor of the University of Cam- 
bridge, and this was my sole motive for inscribing my first comedy 
to him. As for the play itself, whilst the prologue and the pro- 
logue's author run the gauntlet, that kept possession of the stage, 
and Woodward and Yates lost no credit by the support they gave 
it. 

I will not trouble the reader with many apologies or appeals, 
yet just now whilst I am beginning to introduce a long list of 
dramas, such as I presume no English author has yet equalled in 
point of number, I would fain intercede for a candid interpretation 
of my labours, and recommend my memory to posterity for protec- 
tion after death from those unhandsome cavils, which I have pa- 
tiently endured whilst living. 

I am not to learn that dramatic authors are to arm themselves 
with fortitude before they take a post so open to attack ; they, who 
are to act in the public eye, and speak in the public ear, have no 
right to expect a very smooth and peaceful career. I have had my 
full share of success, and I trust I have paid my tax for it always 
without mutiny, and very generally without murmuring. I have 
never irritated the town by making a sturdy stand against their op- 
position, when they have been pleased to point it against any one 
of my productions : I never failed to withdraw myself on the very 
first intimation that I was unwelcome, and the only offence I have 
been guilty of is, that I have not always thought the worse of a 

composition 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 201 

composition only because the public did not think well of it. I 
solemnly protest that I have never written, or caused to be written, 
a single line to puff and praise myself, or to decry a brother drama- 
tist, since I had life ; of all such anonymous and mean manoeuvres 
I am clearly innocent and proudly disdainful ; I have stood firm for 
the corps, into which I enrolled myself, and never disgraced my 
colours by abandoning the cause of the legitimate comedy, to whose 
service I am sworn, and in whose defence I have kept the field for 
nearly half a century, till at last I have survived all true national 
taste, and lived to see buffoonery, spectacle and puerility so effec- 
tually triumph, that now to be repulsed from the stage is to be 
recommended to the closet, and to be applauded by the theatre is 
little else than a passport to the puppet-show. I only say what 
every body knows to be true : I do not write from personal motives, 
for I have no more cause for complaint than is common to many of 
my brethren of the corps. It is not my single misfortune to have 
been accused of vanity, which I did not feel, of satires, which I 
did not write, and of invectives, which I disdained even to medi- 
tate. It stands recorded of me in a review to this hour, that on the 
first night of The School for Scandal I was overheard in the lobby 
endeavouring to decry and cavil at that excellent comedy: I gave 
my accuser proof positive, that I was at Bath during the time of its 
first run, never saw it during its first season, and exhibited my 
pocket-journal in confirmation of my alibi : the gentleman was con- 
vinced of my innocence, but as he had no opportunity of correct- 
ing his libel, every body that read it remains convinced of my guilt. 

d d Now 



202 MEMOIRS OF 

Now as none, who ever heard my name, will fail to suppose I must 
have said what is imputed to me in bitterness of heart, not from 
defect in head, this false aspersion of my character was cruel and 
injurious in the extreme. I hold it right to explain that the reviewer 
I am speaking of has been long since dead. 

In the ensuing year I again paid a visit to my father at Clon- 
fert, and there in a little closet at the back of the palace^ as it was 
called, unfurnished and out of use, with no other prospect from my 
single window but that of a turf-stack, with which it was almost in 
contact, I seated myself by choice, and began to plan and compose 
The West Indian. 

As the writer for the stage is a writer to the passions, I hold it 
matter of conscience and duty in the dramatic poet to reserve his 
brightest colouring for the best characters, to give no false attrac- 
tions to vice and immorality, but to endeavour, as far as is consis- 
tent with that contrast, which is the very essence of his art, to turn 
the fairer side of human nature to the public, and, as much as in him 
lies, to contrive so as to put men in good humour with one another. 
Let him therefore in the first place strive to make worthy charac- 
ters amiable, but take great care not to make them insipid ; if he 
does not put life and spirit into his man or woman of virtue, and 
render them entertaining as well as good, their morality is not a 
whit more attractive than the morality of a Greek chorus. He had 
better have let them alone altogether. 

Congreve, Farquhar, and some others have made vice and 
villany so playful and amusing, that either they could not find in 

their 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 203 

their hearts to punish them, or not caring how wicked they were, 
so long as they were witty, paid no attention to what became of 
them : Shadwell's comedy is little better than a brothel. Poetical 
justice, which has armed the tragic poet with the weapons of 
death, and commissioned him to wash out the offence in the blood 
of the offender, has not left the comic writer without his instru- 
ments of vengeance ; for surely, if he knows how to employ the 
authority that is in him, the scourge of ridicule alone is sharp 
enough for the chastisement of any crimes, which can fall within 
his province to exhibit. A true poet knows that unless he can 
produce works, whose fame will outlive him, he will outlive both 
his works and his fame ; therefore every comic author who takes 
the mere clack of the da}' for his subject, and abandons all his 
claim upon posterity, is no true poet; if he dabbles in personalities, 
he does considerably worse. When I began therefore, as at this 
time, to write for the stage, my ambition was to aim at writing 
something that might be lasting and outlive me ; when temporary 
subjects were suggested to me, I declined them : I formed to my- 
self in idea what I conceived to be the character of a legitimate 
corned}', and that alone was my object, and though I did not quite 
aspire to attain, I was not altogether in despair of approaching it. 
I perceived that I had fallen upon a time, when great eccentricity 
of character was pretty nearly gone by, but still I fancied there was 
an opening for some originality, and an opportunity for shewing at 
least my good will to mankind, if I introduced the characters of 
persons, who had been usually exhibited on the stage, as the butts 

d d 2 for 



204 MEMOIRS OF 

ridicule and abuse, and endeavoured to present them in such lights, 
as might tend to reconcile the world to them, and them to the 
world. I thereupon looked into society for the purpose of disco- 
vering such as were the victims of its national, professional or reli- 
gious prejudices ; in short for those suffering characters, which 
stood in need of an advocate, and out of these I meditated to 
select and form heroes for my future dramas, of which I would 
study to make such favourable and reconciliatory delineations, as 
might incline the spectators to look upon them with pity, and re- 
ceive them into their good opinion and esteem. 

With this project in my mind, and nothing but the turf-stack 
to call off my attention, I took the characters of an Irishman and a 
West Indian for the heroes of mj - plot, and began to work it out 
into the shape of a comedj r . To the West Indian I devoted a ge- 
nerous spirit, and a vivacious giddy dissipation; I resolved he 
should love pleasure much, but honour more ; but as I could not 
keep consistency of character without a mixture of failings, when I 
gave him charity, I gave him that, which can cover a multitude, 
and thus protected, thus recommended, I thought I might send 
him out into the world to shift for himself. 

For my Irishman I had a scheme rather more complicated ; I 
put him into the Austrian service, and exhibited him in the livery 
of a foreign master, to impress upon the audience the melancholy 
and impolitic alternative, to which his religious disqualification had 
reduced a gallant and a loyal subject of his natural king : I gave 
him courage, for it belongs to his nation ; I endowed him with 

honour, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 205 

honour, for it belongs to his profession, and I made him proud, 
jealous, susceptible, for such the exiled veteran will be, who lives 
by the earnings of his sword, and is not allowed to draw it in the 
service of that country, which gave him birth, and which of course 
he was born to defend : for his phraseology I had the glossary ready 
at my hand ; for his mistakes and trips, vulgarly called bulls, I 
did not know the Irishman of the stage then existing, whom I would 
wish to make my model : their gross absurdities, and unnatural 
contrarieties have not a shade of character in them. When his ima- 
gination is warmed, and his ideas rush upon him in a cluster, 'tis 
then the Irishman will sometimes blunder ; his fancy having sup- 
plied more words than his tongue can well dispose of, it will occa- 
sionally trip. But the imitation must be delicately conducted; his 
meaning is clear, he conceives rightly, though in delivery he is 
confused; and the art, as I conceive it, of finding language for the 
Irish character on the stage consists not in making him foolish, 
vulgar or absurd, but on the contrary, whilst you furnish him with 
expressions, that excite laughter, you must graft them upon senti- 
ments, that deserve applause. 

In all my hours of study it has been through life my object so 
to locate myself as to have little or nothing to distract my attention, 
and therefore brilliant rooms or pleasant prospects I have ever 
avoided. A dead wall, or, as in the present case, an Irish turf- 
stack, are not attractions, that can call off the fancy from its pur- 
suits; and whilst in those pursuits it can find interest and occupa- 
tion, it wants no outward aids to cheer it. My mother, who had a 

fellow- 



206 MEMOIRS OF. 

fellow-feeling with me in these sensations, used occasionally to visit 
me in this hiding hole, and animated me with her remarks upon 
the progress of my work : my father was rather inclined to apolo- 
gize for the meanness of my accommodation, and I believe rather 
wondered at my choice : in the mean time I had none of those in- 
cessant avocations, which for ever crossed me in the writing of The 
Brothers. I was master of my time, my mind was free, and I was 
happy in the society of the dearest friends I had on earth. In pa- 
rents, sister, wife and children greater blessings no man could en- 
joy. The calls of office, the cavillings of angry rivals, and the jib- 
ings of news-paper critics could not reach me on the banks of the 
Shannon, where all within doors was love and affection, all without 
was gratitude and kindness devolved on me through the merits of 
my father. In no other period of my life have the same happy cir- 
cumstances combined to cheer me in anj r of my literary labours. 

During an excursion of a few days upon a visit to Mr. Talbot 
of Mount Talbot, a very respectable and worthy gentleman in those 
parts, I found a kind of hermitage in his pleasure grounds, where I 
wrote some few scenes, and my amiable host was afterwards pleased 
to honour the author of The West Indian with an inscription, affixed 
to that building, commemorating the use, that had been made of 
it ; a piece of elegant flattery very elegantly expressed. 

On this visit to Mr. Talbot I was accompanied by Lord Eyre of 
Eyre Court, a near neighbour and friend of my father. This noble 
Lord, though pretty far advanced in years, was so correctly indi- 
genous, as never to have been out of Ireland in his life, and not 

often 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 207 

often so far from Eyre Court as in this tour to Mr. Talbot's. Pro- 
prietor of a vast extent of soil, not very productive, and inhabiting 
a spacious mansion, not in the best repair, he lived according to 
the style of the country with more hospitality than elegance: whilst 
his table groaned with abundance, the order and good taste of its 
arrangement were little thought of: the slaughtered ox was hung 
up whole, and the hungry servitor supplied himself with his dole of 
flesh, sliced from off the carcase. His lordship's day was so ap- 
portioned as to give the afternoon by much the largest share of it, 
during which, from an early dinner to the hour of rest, he never 
left his chair, nor did the claret ever quit the table. This did not 
produce inebriety, for it was sipping rather than drinking, that 
filled up the time, and this mechanical process of gradually moist- 
ening the human clay was carried on with very little aid from con- 
versation, for his lordship's companions were not very communica- 
tive, and fortunately he was not very curious. He lived in an en- 
viable independance as to reading, and of course he had no books. 
Not one of the windows of his castle was made to open, but luckily 
he had no liking for fresh air, and the consequence may be better 
conceived than described. 

He had a large and handsome pleasure boat on the Shannon, 
and men to row it ; I was of two or three parties with him on that 
noble water as far as to Pertumna, the then deserted castle of the 
Lord Clanrickarde. Upon one of these excursions we were hailed 
by a person from the bank, who somewhat rudely called to us to 
take him over to the other side. The company in the boat making 

no 



208 MEMOIRS OF 

no reply, I inadvertently called out — "Aye, aye, Sir! stay there 
" till we come." — Immediately I heard a murmur in the company, 
and Lord Eyre said to me — " You'll hear from that gentleman 
" again, or I am mistaken. You don't know perhaps that you have 
" been answering one of the most irritable men alive, and the like- 
" liest to interpret what you have said as an affront." He predicted 
truly, for the very next morning the gentleman rode over to Lord 
Eyre, and demanded of him to give up my name. This his lordship 
did, but informed him withal that I was a stranger in the country, 
the son of Bishop Cumberland at Clonfert, where I might be found, 
if he had any commands for me. He instantly replied, that he 
should have received it as an affront from any other man, but 
Bishop Cumberland's was a character he respected, and no son of 
his could be guilty of an intention to insult him. Thus this valiant 
gentleman permitted me to live, and only helped me to another 
feature in my sketch of Major O'Flaherty. 

A short time after this, Lord Eyre, who had a great passion for 
cock-fighting, and whose cocks were the crack of all Ireland, en- 
gaged me in a main at Eyre Court. I was a perfect novice in that 
elegant sport, but the gentlemen from all parts sent me in their 
contributions, and having a good feeder I won every battle in the 
main but one. At this meeting I fell in with my hero from the 
Shannon bank. Both parties dined together, but when I found 
that mine, which was the more numerous and infinitely the most 
obstreperous and disposed to quarrel, could no longer be left in 
peace with our antagonists, I quitted my seat by Lord Eyre and 

went 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 209 

went to the gentleman above-alluded to, who was presiding at the 
second table, and seating myself familiarly on the arm of his chair, 
proposed to him to adjourn our party, and assemble them in ano- 
ther house, for the sake of harmony and good fellowship. With 
the best grace in life he instantly assented, and when I added that 
I should put them under his care, and expect from him as a man 
of honour and my friend, that every mother's son of them should 
be found forthcoming and alive the next morning — " Then by the 
" soul of me, he replied, and they shall ; provided only that no 
" man in company shall dare to give the glorious and immortal me- 
" mory for his toast, which no gentleman, who feels as I do, will 
" put up Avith." To this I pledged myself, and we removed to a 
whiskey house, attended by half a score pipers, playing different 
tunes. Here we went on very joyously and lovingly for a time, till 
a well-dressed gentleman entered the room, and civilly accosting 
me, requested to partake of our festivity, and join the company, if 
no body had an objection — " Ah now, don't be too sure of that," a 
voice was instantly heard to reply, " I believe you will find plenty 
" of objection in this company to your being one amongst us." — 
What had he done the gentleman demanded — " What have you 
" done," rejoined the first speaker, " Don't I know you for the 
" miscreant, that ravished the poor wench against her will, in pre- 
" sence of her mother ? And didn't your Pagans, that held her 
" down, ravish the mother afterwards, in presence of her daughter? 
" And do you think wc will admit you into our company ? Make your- 
" self sure that we shall not; therefore get out of this as speedily as 

e e " you 



210 MEMOIRS OF 

" you can, and away wid you !" Upon this the whole company 
rose, and in their rising the civil gentleman made his exit and was 
off. I relate this incident exactly as it happened, suppressing the 
name of the gentleman, who was a man of property and some con- 
sequence. When my surprise had subsided, and the punch began 
to circulate with a rapidity the greater for this gentleman's having 
troubled the waters, I took my departure, having first cautioned a 
friend, who sate by me, (and the only protestant in the company) 
to keep his head cool and beware of the glorious memory; this gal- 
lant young officer, son to a man, who held lands of my father, pro- 
mised faithfully to be sober an4 discreet, as well knowing the com- 
pany he was in ; but my friend having forgot the firs't part of his 
promise, and getting very tipsy, let the second part slip out of his 
memory, and became very mad ; for stepping aside for his pistols, 
he re-entered the room, and laying them on the table, took the 
cockade from his hat, and dashed it into the punch-bowl, demand- 
ing of the company to drink the glorious and immortal memory of 
King William in a bumper, or abide the consequences. I was not 
there, and if I had been present I could neither have stayed the 
tumult, nor described it. I only know he turned out the next 
morning merely for honour's sake, but as it was one against a host, 
the magnanimity of his opponents let him off with a shot or two, that 
did no execution. I .returned to the peaceful family at Clonfert, 
and fought no more cocks. 

The fairies were extremely prevalent at Clonfert : visions of bu- 
rials attended by long processions of mourners were seen to circle 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 211 

the church yard by night, and there was no lack of oaths and attes- 
tations to enforce the truth of it. My mother suffered a loss by 
them of a large brood of fine turkies, who were every one burnt to 
ashes, bones and feathers, and their dust scattered in the air by 
their provident nurse and feeder to appease those mischievous little 
beings, and prevent worse consequences : the good dame credited 
herself very highly for this act of atonement, but my mother did 
not see it quite in so meritorious a light. 

A few days after as my father and I were riding in the grounds 
we crossed upon the Catholic priest of the parish. My father began 
a conversation with him, and expressed a wish that he would cau- 
tion his flock against this idle superstition of the fairies : the good 
man assured the bishop that in the first place he could not do it 
if he would ; and in the next place confessed that he was himself 
far from being an unbeliever in their existence. My father there- 
upon turned the subject, and observed to him with concern, that 
his steed was a very sorry one, and in very wretched condition — 
" Truly, my good lord," he replied, " the beast himself is but an 
" ugly garron, and whereby I have no provender to spare him, 
" mightily out of heart, as I may truly say; but your lordship must 
" think a poor priest like me has a mighty deal of work and very 
" little pay — " " Why then, brother," said my good father, whilst 
benevolence beamed in his countenance, " 'tis fit that I, who have 
" the advantage of you in both respects, should mount you on a 
" better horse, and furnish you with provender to maintain him — ." 
This parley with the priest passed in the very hay-field, where the 

e e 2 bishop's 



212 MEMOIRS OF 

bishop's people were at work; orders were instantly given for a 
stack of hay to be made at the priest's cabin, and in a few days 
after a steady horse was purchased and presented to him. Surely 
they could not be true born Irish fairies, that would spite my father, 
or even his turkies, after this. 

Amongst the labourers in my father's garden there were three 
brothers of the name of O'Rourke, regularly descended from the 
kings of Connaught, if they were exactly to be credited for the 
correctness of their genealogy. There was also an elder brother of 
these, Thomas O'Rourke, who filled the superior station of hind, or 
headman ; it was his wife that burnt the bewitched turkies, whilst 
Tom burnt his wig for joy of my victory at the cock-match, and 
threw a proper parcel of oatmeal into the air as a votive offering for 
my glorious success. One of the younger brothers was upon 
crutches in consequence of a contusion on his hip, which he lite- 
rally acquired as follows — When my father came down to Clonfert 
from Dublin, it was announced to him that the bishop was arrived : 
the poor fellow was then in the act of lopping a tree in the garden ; 
transported at the tidings, he exclaimed — " Is my lord come ? Then 
" I'll throw myself out of this same tree for joy — ." He exactly ful- 
filled his word, and laid himself up for some months. 

When I accompanied my mother from Clonfert to Dublin, my 
father having gone before, we passed the night at Killbeggan, where 
Sir Thomas Cuffe, (knighted in a frolic by Lord Townshend) kept the 
inn. A certain Mr. Geoghegan was extremely drunk, noisy and 
brutally troublesome to Lady Cuffe the hostess : Thomas O'Rourke 

was 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 213 

was with us, and being much scandalized with the behaviour of 
Geoghegan, took me aside, and in a whisper said — " Squire, will 
" I quiet this same Mr. Geoghegan ?" When I replied by all means, 
but how was it to be done ? — Tom produced a knife of formidable 
length, and demanded — " Haven't I got this ? And won't this do 
" the job, and hasn't he wounded the woman of the inn with a 
" chopping knife, and what is this but a knife, and wou'dn't it be a 
" good deed to put him to death like a mad dog ? Therefore, 
" Squire, do you see, if it will pleasure you and my lady there 
" above stairs, who is ill enough, God he knows, I'll put this knife 
" into that same Mr. Geoghegan's ribs, and be off the next moment 
" on the grey mare ; and isn't she in the stable ? Therefore only 
" say the word, and I'll do it." This was the true and exact pro- 
posal of Thomas O'Rourke, and as nearly as I can remember, I 
have stated it in his very words. 

We arrived safe in Dublin, leaving Mr. Geoghegan to get sober 
at his leisure, and dismissing O'Rourke to his quarters at Clonfert. 
When we had passed a few days in Kildafe-Street, I well remember 
the surprise it occasioned us one afternoon, when without any no- 
tice we saw a great gigantic dirty fellow walk into the room, and 
march straight up to my father for what purpose we could not de- 
vise. My mother uttered a scream, whilst my father with perfect 
composure addressed him by the name of Stephen, demanding 
what he wanted with him, and what brought him to Dublin — 
" Nay, my good lord," replied the man, " I have no other busi- 
" ness in Dublin itself but to take a bit of a walk up from Clonfert 

" to 



214 MEMOIRS OF 

" to see your sweet face, long life to it, and to beg a blessing upon 
■9 me from your lordship ; that is all." So saying he flounced down 
on his knees, and in a most piteous kind of howl, closing his hands 
at the same time cried out — " Pray, my lord, pray to God to bless 
<: Stephen Costello — ." The scene was sufficiently ludicrous to have 
spoiled the solemnity, yet my father kept his countenance, and 
gravely gave his blessing, saying as he laid his hands on his head — 
" God bless you, Stephen Costello, and make you a good boy !" 
The giant sung out a loud amen, and arose, declaring he should 
immediately set out and return to his home. He would accept no 
refreshment, but with many thanks and a thousand blessings in re- 
Compence for the one he had received, walked out of the house, 
and I can well believe resumed his pilgrimage to the westward 
without stop or stay. I should not have considered this and the 
preceding anecdotes as worth recording, but that they are in some 
degree characteristic of a very curious and peculiar people, who 
are not often understood by those who profess to mimic them, and 
who are too apt to set them forth as objects for ridicule only, when 
oftentimes even their oddities, if candidly examined, would entitle 
them to our respect. 

I will here mention a very extraordinary honour, which the city 
of Dublin was pleased to confer upon my father in presenting him 
with his freedom in a gold box ; a form of such high respect as they 
had never before observed towards any person below the rank of 
their chief governor; I state this last-mentioned circumstance from 
authorities that ought not to be mistaken ; if the fact is otherwise, I 

have 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 215 

have been misinformed, and the honour conferred upon the Bishop 
of Clonfert was not without a precedent. The motives assigned in 
the deed, which accompanied the box, are in general for the great 
respectability of his character, and in particular for his disinterested 
protection of the Irish clergy. Under this head it was supposed 
they alluded to the benefice, which he had bestowed upon a most 
deserving clergyman, his own particular friend and chaplain, the 
Reverend Dixie Blondel, who happened also to be at that time 
chaplain to the Lord Mayor of Dublin. I have the box at this 
time in my possession. 

To the same merits, which influenced the city to bestow this 
distinguished honour on my father, I must ascribe that which I 
received from the University of Dublin by the honorary grant of 
the degree of Doctor of Laws. Upon this I have only to observe 
that to be within the sphere of my father's good name, was to me 
at once a security against danger and a recommendation to favour 
and reward. 

When I returned to England I entered into an engagement with 
Mr. Garrick to bring out The West Indian at his theatre. I had 
received fair and honourable treatment from Mr. Harris, and had 
not the slightest cause of complaint against him, his brother paten- 
tees or his actors. I had however no engagement with him, nor 
had he signified to me his wish or expectation of any such in future. 
If notwithstanding, the obligation was honourably such, as I was 
not free to depart from, in which light I am pretty sure he regard- 
ed it, my conduct was no otherwise defensible than as it was not in- 
tentionally 



216 MEMOIRS OF 

tentionally unfair. My acquaintance with Mr. Garrick had become 
intimacy between the acting of The Brothers and the acceptance 
of the West Indian. I resorted to him again and again with the 
manuscript of my comedy ; I availed myself of his advice, of his 
remarks, and I was neither conscious of doing what was wrong in 
me to do, nor did any remonstrance ever reach me to apprise me of 
my error. 

I was not indeed quite a novice to the theatre, but I was clearly 
innocent of knowing or believing myself bound by any rules or 
usage, that prevented me from offering my production to the one or 
the other at my own free option. I went to Mr. Garrick ; I found 
in him what my inexperience stood in need of, an admirable judge 
of stage-effect; at his suggestion I added the preparatory scene in the 
house of Stockwell, before the arrival of Belcour, where his baggage 
is brought in, and the domestics of the Merchant are setting things 
in readiness for his coming. This insertion I made by his advice, 
and I punctually remember the very instant when he said to me in 
his chariot on our way to Hampton — " I want something more to 
" be announced of your West Indian before you bring him on the 
" stage to give eclat to his entrance, and rouse the curiosity of the 
" audience ; that they may say — Aye, here he comes with all his 
" colours flying — ." When I asked how this was to be done, and 
who was to do it, he considered awhile and then replied — " Why 
" that is your look out, my friend, not mine ; but if neither your 
" Merchant nor his clerk can do it, why, why send in the servants, 
" and let them talk about him. Never let me see a hero step upon 

"the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 217 

" the stage without his trumpeters of some sort or other/' Upon 
this conversation it was that I engrafted the scene above-mention- 
ed, and this was in truth the only alteration of any consequence 
that the manuscript underwent in its passage to the stage. 

After we came to Hampton, where that inimitable man was to 
be seen in his highest state of animation, we began to debate upon 
the cast of the play. Barry was extremely desirous to play the part 
of the Irish Major, and Garrick was very doubtful how to decide, 
for Moody was then an actor little known and at a low salary. I 
took no part in the question, for I was entitled to no opinion, but 
I remember Garrick after long deliberation gave his decree for 
Moody with considerable repugnance, qualifying his preference of 
the latter with reasons, that in no respect reflected on the merits of 
Mr. Barry — but he did not quite see him in the whole part of 
OTlaherty ; there were certain points of humour, where he thought 
it likely he might fail, and in that case his failure, like his name, 
would' be more conspicuous than Moody's. In short Moody would 
take pains ; it might make him, it might mar the other ; so Moody 
had it, and succeeded to our utmost wishes. Mr. King, ever justly 
a favourite of the public, took the part of Belcour, and Mrs. 
Abingdon, with some few salvos on the score of condescension, 
played Charlotte Rusport, and though she would not allow it to 
be any thing but a sketch, yet she made a character of it by her 
inimitable acting;. 

The production of a new play was in those days an event of 
much greater attraction than from its frequency it is now become, 

p f so 



218 ' MEMOIRS OF 

so that the house was taken to the back rows of the front boxes for 
several nights in succession before that of its representation ; yet in 
this interval I offered to give its produce to Garrick for a picture, 
that hung over his chimney piece in Southampton-Street, and was 
only a copy from a Holy Family of Andrea del Sarto : he would 
have closed with me upon the bargain, but that the picture had 
been a present to him from Lord Baltimore. My expectations did 
not run very high when I made this offer. 

A rumour had gone about, that the character, which gave its 
title to the comedy, was satirical; of course the gentlemen, who 
came under that description, went down to the theatre in great 
strength, very naturally disposed to chastise the author for his ma- 
lignity, and their phalanx was not a little formidable. Mrs. Cum- 
berland and I sate with Mr. and Mrs. Garrick in their private box. 
When the prologue-speaker had gone the length of the four first 
lines the tumult was excessive, and the interruption held so long, 
that it seemed doubtful, if the prologue would be suffered to pro- 
ceed. Garrick was much agitated ; he observed to me that the 
appearance of the house, particularly in the pit, was more hostile 
than he had ever seen it. It so happened that I did not at that 
moment feel the danger, which he seemed to apprehend, and remark- 
ed to him that the very first word, which discovered Belcour's cha- 
racter to be friendly, would turn the clamour for us, and so far I 
regarded the impetuosity of the audience as a symptom in our fa- 
vour. Whilst this was passing between us, order was loudly issued 
for the prologue to begin again, and in the delivery of a few lines 

more 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 219 

more than they had already heard they seemed reconciled to wait 
the developement of a character, from which they were told to ex- 
pect 

" Some emanations of a noble mind." 

Their acquiescence however was not set off with much applause; 
it was a suspicious truce, a sullen kind of civility, that did not 
promise more favour than we could earn ; but when the prologue 
came to touch upon the Major, and told his countrymen in the gal- 
leries, that 

" His heart can never trip — " 

.they, honest souls, who had hitherto been treated with little else 
but stage kicks and cuffs for their entertainment, sent up such a 
hearty crack, as plainly told us we had not indeed little cherubs, 
but lusty champions, who sate up aloft. 

Of the subsequent success of this lucky comedy there is no oc- 
casion for me to speak ; eight and twenty successive nights it went 
without the buttress of an afterpiece, which was not then the prac- 
tice of attaching to a new play. Such was the good fortune of an 
author, who happened to strike upon a popular and taking plan, 
for certainly the moral of The West Indian is not quite unexcep- 
tionable, neither is the dialogue above the level of others of the 
same author, which have been much less favoured. The snarlers 
snapped at it, but they never set their teeth into the right place ; 
I don't think I am very vain when I say that I could have taught 
them better. Garrick was extremely kind, and threw his shield 
before me more than once, as the St. James's evening paper could 

F F 2 have 



220 MEMOIRS OF 

witnessed. My property in the piece was reserved for me with the 
greatest exactness ; the charge of the house upon the authors nights 
was then only sixty pounds, and when Mr. Evans the Treasurer came 
to my house in Queen-Ann-Street in a hackney coach with a huge bag 
of money, he spread it all in gold upon my table, and seemed to 
contemplate it with a kind of ecstasy, that was extremely droll ; 
and when I tendered him his customary fee, he peremptorily re- 
fused it, saying he had never paid an author so much before, I had 
fairly earnt it, and he would not lessen it a single shilling, not even 
his coach-hire, and in that humour he departed. He had no sooner 
left the room than one entered it, who was not quite so scrupulous, 
but quite as welcome ; my beloved wife took twenty guineas from 
the heap, and instantly bestowed them on the faithful servant, who 
had attended on our children; a tribute justly due to her unwearied 
diligence and exemplary conduct. 

I sold the copy right to Griffin in Catherine-Street for 150/. and 
if he told the truth when he boasted of having vended 12,000 
copies, he did not make a bad bargain ; and if he made a good 
one, which it is pretty clear he did, it is not quite so clear that he 
deserved it : he was a sorry fellow. 

I paid respectful attention to all the floating criticisms, that 
came within my reach, but I found no opportunities of profiting 
by their remarks, and very little cause to complain of their per- 
sonalities ; in short I had more praise than I merited, and less ca- 
villing than I expected. One morning when I called upon Mr. 
Garrick I found him with the St. James's evening paper in his 
n hand, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 221 

hand, which he began to read with a voice and action of surprise, 
most admirably counterfeited, as if he had discovered a mine under 

my feet, and a train to blow me up to destruction " Here, here," 

he cried, " if your skin is less thick than a rhinoceros's hide, egad, 
" here is that will cut you to the bone. This is a terrible fellow ; I 
" wonder who it can be/' — He began to sing out his libel in a high 
declamatory tone, with a most comic countenance, and pausing at 
the end of the first sentence, which seemed to favour his contrivance 
for a little ingenious tormenting, when he found he had hooked 
me, he laid down the paper, and began to comment upon the cru- 
elty of newspapers, and moan over me with a great deal of mali- 
cious fun and good humour — " Confound these fellows, they spare 
" nobody. I dare say this is Bickerstaff again ; but you don't 
" mind him ; no, no, I see you don't mind him ; a little galled, but 
" not much hurt : you may stop his mouth with a golden gag, but 
" we'll see how he goes on." — He then resumed his reading, cheer- 
ing me all the way as it began to soften, till winding up in the 
most profest panegyric, of which he was himself the writer, I found 
my friend had had his joke, and I had enjoyed his praise, sea- 
soned and set off, in his inimitable manner, which to be compre- 
hended must have been seen. 

It was the remark of Lord Lyttelton upon this corned}', when 
speaking of it to me one evening at Mrs. Montagu's, that had it 
not been for the incident of O'Flaherty's hiding himself behind the 
screen, when he overhears the lawyer's soliloquy, he should have 
pronounced it a faultless composition. This flattery his lordship 

surely 



222 MEMOIRS OF 

surely added against the conviction of his better judgment merely 
as a sweetener to qualify his criticism, and by so doing convinced 
me that he suspected me of being less amenable to fair correction 
than I really am and ever have been. But be this as it may, 
a criticism from Lord Lyttelton must always be worth recording, 
and this especially, as it not only applies to my comedy in parti- 
cular, but is general to all. 

" I consider listening," said he, " as a resource never to be 
" allowed in any pure drama, nor ought any good author to make 
" use of it/' This position being laid down by authority so high, 
and audibly delivered, drew the attention of the company assem- 
bled for conversation, and all were silent. " It is in fact/' he added, 
" a violation of those rules, which original authorities have esta- 
" blished for the constitution of the comic drama/' After all due 
acknowledgments for the favour of his remark, I replied that if I 
had trespassed against any rule laid down by classical authority in 
the case alluded to, I had done it inadvertently, for I really did not 
know where any such rule was to be found. 

" What did Aristotle say ? — Were there no rules laid down by 
*' him for comedy ?" None that I knew ; Aristotle referred to the 
Margites and Ilias Minor as models, but that was no rule, and the 
models being lost, we had neither precept nor example to instruct 
us. " Were there any precedents in the Greek or Roman drama, 
" which could justify the measure ?" — To this I replied that no pre- 
cedent could justify the measure in my opinion, which his lordship's 
better judgment had condemned; being possessed of that I should 

offend 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 223 

offend no more, but as my error was committed when I had no such 
advice to guide me, I did recollect that Aristophanes did not scruple 
to resort to listening, and drawing conclusions from what was over- 
heard, when a man rambled and talked broken sentences in his 
bed asleep and dreaming ; and as for the Roman stage, if any thing 
could apologize for the Major's screen, I conceived there were 
screens in plenty upon that, which formed separate streets and en- 
trances, Avhich concealed the actors from each other, and gave oc- 
casion to a great deal of listening and over-hearing in their comedy. 

" But this occurs," said Lord Lyttelton, " from the construc- 
" tion of the scene, not from the contrivance and intent of the cha- 
" racter, as in your case ; and when such an expedient is resorted 
" to by an officer, like your Major, it is discreditable and unbe- 
" coming of him as a man of honour." This was decisive, and I 
made no longer any struggle. What my predecessors in the drama, 
who had been dealers in screens, closets and key-holes for a cen- 
tury past, would have said to this doctrine of the noble critic, I 
don't pretend to guess : it would have made sad havoc with many 
of them and cut deep into their property ; as for me, I had so weak 
a cause and so strong a majority against me, (for every lady in the 
room denounced listeners) that all I could do was to insert without 
loss of time a few words of palliation into the Major's part, by 
making him say upon resorting to his hiding place — Til step behind 
this screen and listen : a good soldier must sometimes Jight in ambush 
as well as in the open field. 

I now leave this criticism to the consideration of those ingenious 

men, 



224 MEMOIRS OF 

men, who may in future cultivate the stage ; I could name one 
now living, who has made such happy use of his screen in a comedy 
of the very first merit, that if Aristotle himself had written a whole 
chapter professedly against screens, and Jerry Collier had edited it 
with notes and illustrations, I would not have placed Lady Teazle 
out of ear-shot to have saved their ears from the pillory : but if 
either of these worthies could have pointed out an expedient to 
have got Joseph Surface off the stage, pending that scene, with any 
reasonable conformity to nature, they would have done more good 
to the drama than either of them have done harm ; and that is say- 
ing a great deal. 

There never have been any statute-laws for comedy ; there never 
can be any : it is only referable to the unwritten law of the heart, 
and that is nature ; now though the natural child is illegitimate, 
the natural comedy is according to my conception of it what in 
other words we denominate the legitimate comedy. If it represents 
men and women as they are, it pictures nature ; if it makes mon- 
sters, it goes out of nature. It has a right to command the aid of 
spectacle, as far as spectacle is properly incidental to it, but if it 
makes its serving-maid its mistress, it becomes a puppet-show, and 
its actors ought to speak through a comb behind the scenes, and 
never shew their foolish faces on the stage. If the author conceives 
himself at liberty to send his characters on and off the stage exactly 
as he pleases, and thrust them into gentlemen's houses and private 
chambers, as if they could walk into them as easily as they can 
walk through the side scenes, he does not know his business ; If he 

gives 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 225 

gives you the interior of a man of fashion's family, and does not 
speak the language, or reflect the manners, of a well-bred person, 
he undertakes to describe company he has never been admitted to, 
and is an impostor: if he cannot exhibit a distressed gentleman on 
the scene without a bailiff at his heels to arrest him, nor reform a 
dissipated lady without a spunging-house to read his lectures in, I 
am sorry for his dearth of fancy, and lament his want of taste : If 
he cannot get his Pegasus past Newgate without his restively stop- 
ping like a post horse at the end of his stage, it is a pity he has 
taught him such unhandsome customs : if he permits the actor, 
whom he deputes to personate the rake of the day to copy the 
dress, air, attitude, straddle and outrageous indecorum of those ca- 
ricatures in our print-shops, which keep no terms with nature, he 
courts the galleries at the ex pence of decency, and degrades him- 
self, his actor and the stage to catch those plaudits, that convey no 
fame, and do not elevate him one inch above the keeper of the 
beasts in the Tower, who puts his pole between the bars to make 
the lion roar. In short it is much better, more justifiable and infi- 
nitely more charitable, to write nonsense and set it to good music, 
than to write ribaldry, and impose it upon good actors. But of this 
more fully and explicitly hereafter, when committing myself and 
my works to the judgment of posterity, I shall take leave of my 
contemporaries, and with every parting wish for their prosperity 
shall bequeath to them honestly and without reserve all that my 
observation and long experience can suggest for their edification and 
advantage. 

Cr g However 



226 MEMOIRS OF 

However before I quite bid farewel to The West-Indian, I must 
mention a criticism, which I picked up in Rotten-Row from Nu- 
gent Lord Clare, not ex cathedra, but from the saddle on an easy 
trot. His lordship was contented with the play in general, but he 
could not relish the five wives of O'Flaherty ; they were four too 
many for an honest man, and the over-abundance of them hurt his 
lordship's feelings ; I thought I could not have a better criterion 
for the feelings of other people, and desired Moody to manage the 
matter as well as he could ; he put in the qualifier of en rnilitaire, 
and his five wives brought him into no further trouble ; all but one 
were left-handed, and he had German practice for his plea. Upon 
the whole I must take the world's word for the merit of The West- 
Indian, and thankfully suppose that what they best liked was in 
fact best to be liked. 

A little straw will serve to light a great fire, and after the acting 
of The West-Indian, I would say, if the comparison was not too 
presumptuous, I was almost the Master Betty of the time ; but as I 
dare say that young gentleman is even now too old and too wise to 
be spoilt by popularity, so was I then not quite boy enough to be 
tickled by it, and not quite fool enough to confide in it. In short 
I took the same course then which he is taking now ; as he keeps 
on acting part after part, so did I persist in writing play after play ; 
and this, if I am not mistaken, is the surest course we either of us 
could take of running through our period of popularity, and of 
finding our true level at the conclusion of it. 

I recollect the fate of a young artist in Northamptonshire, who 

was 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 227 

was famous for his adroitness in pointing and repairing the spires of 
church-steeples ; he formed his scaffolds with consummate inge- 
nuity, and mounted his ladders with incredible success. The spire 
of the church of Raunds was of prodigious height ; it overpeered 
all its neighbours, as Shakespear does all his rivals ; the young ad- 
venturer was employed to fix the weather-cock ; he mounted to the 
topmost stone, in which the spindle was bedded ; universal plaudits 
hailed him in his ascent ; he found himself at the very achme of his 
fame, but glorious ambition tempted him to quit his ladder, and 
occupy the place of the weather-cock, standing upon one leg, while 
he sung a song to amaze the rustic multitude below: what the song 
was, and how many stanzas he lived to get through I do not know; 
he sung it in too large a theatre, and was somewhat out of hearing; 
but it is in my memory to know that he came to his cadence before 
his song did, and falling from his height left the world to draw its 
moral from his melancholy fate. 

I now for the first time entered the lists of controversy, and took 
up the gauntlet of a renowned champion to vindicate the insulted 
character of my grandfather Doctor Bentley. The offensive passage 
met me in a pamphlet written by Bishop Lowth professedly against 
Warburton, acrimonious enough of all conscience, and unepisco- 
pally intemperate in the highest degree, even if his lordship had 
not gone out of his course to hurl this dirt upon the coffin of my 
ancestor. The bishop is now dead, and I will not use his name 
irreverently ; my grandfather was dead, yet he stept aside to hook 
him in as a mere verbal critic, who in matters of taste and elegant 

g g 2 literature 



228 MEMOIRS OF 

literature he asserts was contemptibly deficient, and then he resorts 
to his Catullus for the most disgraceful names he can give him as 
a scholar or a gentleman, and says he was aut caprimulgus aut 

* 

fossor, terms, that in English, would have been downright black- 
guardism. 

All the world knows that Warburton and Lowth had mouthed 
and mumbled each other till their very bands blushed and their 
lawn-sleeves were bloody. I should have thought that the prelate, 
who had Warburton for his antagonist, would hardly have found 
leisure from his own self-defence to have turned aside and fixed 
his teeth in a bye-stander. Yet so it was, and it struck me that the 
unmanly unprovoked attack not only warranted, but demanded, a 
remonstrance from the descendants of Doctor Bentley. I stood 
only in the second degree from my uncle Richard, and as much 
below him in controversial ability, as I was in lineal descent. I 
appealed therefore in the first place to him, as nearest in blood, and 
strongest in capacity. His blood however was not in the temper 
to ferment as mine did, and with a philosophical contempt for this 
sparring of pens he positively declined having any thing to do with 
the affair. I well remember, but I won't describe the scene ; he 
was very pleasant with me, and reminded me with great kindness 
how utterly unequal I ought to think myself for undertaking to hold 
an argument against Bishop Lowth. He was perfectly right; it 
was exactly so that a sensible Roman would have talked to Curtius 
before he took his foolish leap, or a charitable European to a Bra- 
min widow before she devoted herself to the flames ; but my ob- 
stinacy 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 229 

stinacy was incorrigible. At length having warned me that I was 
about to draw a complete discomfiture on, my cause, he prudently 
conditioned with me so to mark myself out, either by name or de- 
scription, in the title of my pamphlet, as that he should stand ex- 
cused, and out of chance of being mistaken for its author. No- 
thing could be more reasonable, and I promised to comply with his 
injunctions, and be duly careful of his safety. This I fulfilled by 
describing myself under such a signature, as all but told my name, 
and could not possibly, 'as I conceived, be fathered upon him. 
With this he was content, and with great politeness, in which no 
man exceeded him, gave me his hand at parting and wished me a 
good deliverance. 

I lost no time in addressing myself to this task ; it soon grew 
into the size of a pamphlet; my heart was warm in the subject, 
and as soon as my appeal appeared I was publicly known to be the 
author of it. I may venture to say, that weak as my bow was 
presumed to be, the arrow did not miss its aim, and justice univer- 
sally decided for me. Warburton had candidly apologized to. Lowth 
for having unknowingly hurt his feelings by some glances he had 
made at the person of a deceased relation of the Bishop of Oxford, 
and I now claimed from Lowth the same candour, which he had 
experienced in the apology of Warburton. This was unanswerable, 
and though Bishop Lowth would not condescend to offer the atone- 
ment to me, which he had exacted and received from another, still 
he had the grace to keep silence, and not attempt a justification of 
himself, and that, which he did not do per se, he would not permit 

to 



230 MEMOIRS OF 

to be done per alium.; for I have reason to know he refused the 
voluntary reply, tendered to him by a certain clergyman of his 
diocese, acknowledging that I had just reason for retaliation, and 
he thought it better that the affair should pass over in silence on his 
part. 

In the mean time my pamphlet went through two full editions, 
and I had every reason to believe the judgment of the public was 
in my favour. I. entitled it " A Letter to the Right Reverend the 

" Lord Bishop of O d, containing some animadversions upon a 

" character given of the late Doctor Bentley in a letter from a late 
" Professor in the University of Oxford, to the Right Reverend Au- 
" thor of the Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated." — To this I 
subjoined, by way of motto, 

Jam parce Sepulto. 
The following paragraph occurs in the 9th page of this pamphlet, 

and is fairly pressed upon the party complained of " Recollect, 

" my Lord, the warmth, the piety, with which you remonstrated 

" against Bishop W J s treatment of your father in a passage of 

" his Julian : — It is not, (you therein say) in behalf of myself that I 
" expostulate, hut of one, for whom I am much more concerned, that 
"is — my father. These are your lordship's words — amiable, affect- 
" ing expression ! instructive lesson of filial devotion ! alas, my 
" lord, that you, who were thus sensible to the least speck, which 
" fell upon the reputation of your father, should be so inveterate 
" against the fame of one, at least as eminent, and perhaps not less 
" dear to his family." 

I had 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 231 

I had traced his caprimulgas aut fossor up to its source in one of 
the most uncleanly samples in Catullus, and in that same satire I 
was led to the character of Suffenus, who seemed made for the very 
purposes of retort. My uncle Bentley stood clear from all suspicion 
of being guilty of the pamphlet, with the exception of one old gen- 
tleman only, Mr. Commissary Greaves of Fulbourne in Cambridge- 
shire, a man of fortune and consequence in his county, who had 
ever professed a great esteem for the memory of my grandfather, 
with whom he had lived in great intimacy, and to whom I believe 
he acknowledged some important obligations. This worthy old 
gentleman had made a small mistake as to the merit of the pamphlet, 
and a great one as to the author; for he complimented the writing, 
and sent a handsome present to the supposed writer. When this 
mistake was no longer a secret from Mr. Greaves, and I received 
not a syllable on the subject from him, I sent him the following 
letter, of which I chanced upon the copy, for the better under- 
standing of which I must premise that he had sent me notice, 
through my relation Doctor Bentley of Nailstone, of a present of 
books, which he had designed for me, when I was a student at 
college, amounting in value to twenty pounds, but which promise 
he excused himself from performing, because there had been a wet 
season, and some of his fen lands had been under water — 

My letter was as follows — 
" Dear Sir, 

" When in the warmth of your affection for the memory 
" of my grandfather you could praise a pamphlet written by me, 

44 and 



232 MEMOIRS OF 

" and address your praises to my uncle, as supposing him to be 
" the author of it, I am more flattered by your mistake, than I will 
" attempt to express to you. You have ever been so good to me, 
" that had your commendations been directed rightly, I must have 
" ascribed the greater share of them to your charitable interpreta- 
" tion of my zeal, and the rest I should have placed to the account 
" of your politeness. 

" When I was an Under-graduate at Trinity-college, you was 
" so obliging as to let me be informed of your intention to eucou- 
" rage and assist me in my studies, and though circumstances at 
" that time intervened to postpone your kind design, you have so 
" abundantly overpaid me, that I have no greater ambition now at 
" heart than that I may continue so to write as to be mistaken for 
" my uncle, and you so to approve of what you read, as to see 
" fresh cause of applauding him, who is so truly deserving of every 
" favour you can bestow." 

" I have the honour to be/' &c. 
" To William Greaves Esquire, 
" Ful bourne." 

Before I quite dismiss this subject I beg leave to address a very 
few words to my friend Mr. Hayley, who in his desultory remarks, 
prefixed to his third volume of Cowper's Letters, has in his mild 
and civil manner made merciless and uncivil sport with Doctor 
Bentley's character. I give him notice that I meditate to wreak 
an exemplary vengeance upon him, for I will publish in these me- 
moirs a copy of his verses, (very elegant in themselves, and ex- 
tremely 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 233 

tremely flattering to me) which I have carefully preserved, and from 
which I shall derive two very considerable advantages — the one Avill 
be the credit of having such a sample of good poetry in my book ; 
the other the malicious gratification of convincing my readers, that 
Mr. Hayley, with all his genius, does not know where to apply it, 
praising the grandson, who is not worthy of his praise, and censur- 
ing the grandfather, whom, as a scholar of the highest class, he 
of all men living ought not to have treated with flippancy and derision. 
And now methinks since I have vowed this vengeance, I will 
not let it rankle in my heart, neither will I longer withhold from my 
readers the verses I have promised them, which, though entitled an 
impromptu by their elegant author, I have not suffered to vanish 
out of my possession with the rapidity, that they have probably 
slipt out of his recollection. If he shall be angry with me for pub- 
lishing them, I desire he will believe, there is not a man living, who 
would not do as I have done, when flattered by the muse of Hayley : 
if the following hasty and unstudied stanzas are not so good as others 
of his finished compositions, they are still better than any one else 
would write, or could write, upon so barren a subject — 

" Impromptu on a Letter of Mr. Cumberland's, most liberally com- 
" mending a Poem of the Author s — " 

" Kind nature with delight regards, 

" And glories to impart, 
" To her bold race of genuine bards 

" Simplicity of heart. 

H H " But 



234 MEMOIRS OF 

" But gloomy spleen, who still arraigns 

" Whate'er we lovely call, 
" Hath said that all poetic veins 

" Are ting'd with envious gall. 

" Each bard, she said, would strike to earth 

" His rival's wreath of fame, 
" Nor ever to inferior worth 

" Allow its humbler claim. 

" But nature with a noble pride 
" Maintained her injur d cause — 

" O Spleen, peruse these lines," she cried, 
" Of Cumberland's applause ! 

" Enough by me hast thou been told 

" Of his poetic art ; 
" Now in his generous praise behold 

" The genius of his heart I" 

The sullen sprite with shame confessed 

Her sordid maxim vain, 
And own'd the true poetic breast 

Unconscious of the stain. 



Whilst 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 235 

Whilst I have been relating the circumstances, that induced 
me to appeal to the world against so great a man as Bishop Lowth, 
and considering within myself how far I was justified in that appa- 
rently presumptuous measure, some thoughts have struck me, as 
I went on with my detail, which all arose out of the subject I was 
upon, though they do not personally apply to the parties I have 
been speaking of: And after all where is the difference between 
man and man, so ascendant on one side, and so depressive on the 
other, as should give to this an authority to insult, and take from 
that the privilege of remonstrance ? It is a truth not sufficiently 
enforced, and, when enforced, not always admitted, though one of 
the most useful and important for the government of our conduct, 
and this it is — that every man, however great in station or in for- 
tune, is mutually dependent upon those, s who are dependent upon 
him. In a social state no man can be truly said to be safe who is 
not under the protection of his fellow-creatures ; no man can be 
called happy, who is not possessed of their good will and good opi- 
nion ; for God never yet endowed a human creature with sensibility 
to feel an insult, but that he gave him also powers to express his 
feelings, and propensity to revenge it. 

The meanest and most feeble insect, that is provided with a 
sting, may pierce the eye of the elephant, on whose very ordure it 
subsists and feeds. 

Every human being has a sting ; why then does an overgrown 
piece of mortal clay arrogantty attempt to bestride the narrow world, 
and launch his artificial thunder from a bridge of brass upon us 

ii ii 2 poor 



236 MEMOIRS OF 

poor underlings in creation ? And when we venture to lift up our 

heads in the crowd, and cry out to the folks about us " This is 

" mere mock thunder ; this is no true Jupiter ; we'll not truckle to his 
" tyranny," — why will some good-natured friend be ever read}' to 
pluck us by the sleeve, and whisper in our ear — "What are you about ? 
"Recollect yourself! he is a giant, a man-mountain; you are a 
" grub, a worm, a beetle; he'll crush you under his foot; he'll tread 
"you into atoms — " not considering, or rather not caring — 
" That the poor beetle, which he trode upon, 
" In mental suffrance felt a pang as great, 

" As what a monarch feels " 

Let no man, who belongs to a community, presume to say that 
he is independent. There is no such condition in society. Thank 
God, our virtues are our best defence. Conciliation, mildness, cha- 
rity, benevolence — Hce tibi erunt artes. 

Are there not spirits continually starting out from the mass of 
mankind, like red hot flakes from the hammer of the blacksmith ? 
And are not these to be feared, who are capable of setting a whole 
city — aye, even a whole kingdom — in flames, let them only fall 
upon the train, that is prepared for them ? Who then will under- 
write a strutting fellow in a lofty station, puffed up with brief autho- 
rity, who won't answer a gentleman's letter, or allow his visit, when 
he asks admission ? If he had the integrity of Aristides, the wisdom 
of Solon and the eloquence of Demosthenes, there would be the 
congregation of an incalculable multitude to sing Te Deum at his 
downfall. He will find himself in the plight of the poor Arab, who 

made 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 237 

made his cream-tarts without pepper; for want of a little whole- 
some seasoning he will have marred his whole batch of pastry, and 
be condemned for a bad baker to the pillory. 

A man shall sin against the whole decalogue, and in this world 
escape with more impunity, than the proud fellow, who offends 
against no commandment, yet provokes you to detest him. I know 
not how to liken him to any thing alive, except it be to the melan- 
choly mute recluse of the convent of La Trappe, who has n® em- 
ployment in life but to dig his own grave, no other society but to 
keep company with his own coffin. If I look for his resemblance 
amongst the irrationals, I should compare him to a poor discon- 
solate ass, whom nobody owns and nobody befriends. The man, 
who has a cudgel, bestows it on his back, and when he brays out 
his piteous lamentations, the dissonance of his tones provoke no 
compassion ; they jarr the ear, but never move the heart. 

A certain duke of Alva about a century ago was the most 
popular man in Spain : the people perfectly adored him. He had 
a revolution in his power every day that he stept without his doors. 
The prime minister truckled to him ; the king trembled at him. 
Eiow he acquired this extraordinary degree of influence was a 
mystery, that seemed to puzzle all conjecture — not by his elo- 
quence, or those powers of declamation, which captivate a mob ; 
the illustrious personage could not string three sentences together 
into common sense or uncommon nonsense: wit he had none, and 
virtue he by no means abounded in ; few men in Spain were sup- 
posed to be more unprincipled ; if you conceived it was by his 

munificence 



238 MEMOIRS OF 

munificence and generosity, he could have told you no man bought 
his popularity so cheap, for when the secret came out, he confess- 
ed, that the whole mystery consisted in his wearing out a few more 
hats in the year than others sacrificed, who did not take off theirs so 
often. 

I knew a gentleman, who was the very immediate contrast to 
this Spanish duke ; he was a man of strict morality, who fulfilled 
the duties and observed the decorum of his profession in the most 
exemplary manner ; in his meditative walk one summer-morning 
he was greeted by a country fellow with the customary saluta- 
" tion — Good morning to you, Sir ! — a fine day — a pleasant walk to 
" you !" — " I don't know you," he replied, " why do you interrupt 
" me with your familiarity ? I did not speak to you ; put your 
" hat upon your head, and pass on !— " u So I will," cried the 
fellow, " and never take it off again to such a proud puppy, whilst 
" I have a head upon my shoulders — " There never was a hat 
stirred to that man from that day, and had he fallen into a ditch, 
I question if there would have been a hand stirred to have helped 
him out of it. 

I return to my narrative — I had a house in Queen- Anne-Street- 
West at the corner of Wimpole-Street, I lived there many years; 
my friend Mr. Fitzherbert lived in the same street, and Mr. Burke 
nearly opposite to me. I was suprised one morning at an early 
hour by a visit from an old clergyman, the Reverend Decimus 
Reynolds. I knew there was such a person in existence, and that 
lie was the son of Bishop Reynolds by my father's aunt, and of 

course 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 239 

course his first cousin, but I had never seen him to my knowledge 
in my life, and he came now at a hour when I was so particularly 
engaged, that I should have denied myself to him but that he had 
called once or twice before and been disappointed of seeing me. I 
had my office papers before me, and my wife was making my tea, 
that I might get down to Whitehall in time for my business, and the 
coach was waiting at the door. He was shewn into the room ; a 
more uncouth person, habit and address was hardly to be met 
with : he advanced, stopt, and stood staring with his e} T es fixed 
upon me for some time, when, putting his hand into a pocket in 
the lining of the breast of his coat, he drew out an old packet of 
paper rolled up and tied with whip-cord, and very ceremoniously 
desired me to peruse it. I begged to know what it was ; for it was 
a work of time to unravel the knots — he replied — " My will." And 
what am I to do with your will, Sir?—" My heir—" Well, Sir, and 
who is your heir ? (I really did not understand him) — " Richard 
" Cumberland — look at the date— left it to you twenty years ago— 
" my whole estate — real and personal— come to town on purpose — 
" brought up my title deeds — put them into your hands— sign a deed 
" of gift, and make them over to you hard and fast." 

All this while I had not looked at his will ; I did not know he 
had any property, or, if he had, I had no guess where it laid, nor 
did I so much as know whereabouts he lived. In the mean time 
he delivered himself in so strange a style, by starts and snatches, 
with long pauses and strong sentences, that I suspected him to be 
deranged, and I saw by the expression of my wife's countenance, 

that 



UO MEMOIRS OF 

that she was under the same suspicion also. I now cast my eye upon 
the will ; I found my name there as his heir under a date of twenty 
years past; it was therefore no sudden caprice, and I conjured 
him to tell me if he had any cause of quarrel or displeasure with 
his nearer relations. Upon this he sate down, took some time to 
compose himself, for he had been greatly agitated, and having re- 
covered his spirits, answered me deliberately and calmly, that he 
had no immediate matter of offence with his relations, but he had 
no obligations to them of any sort, and had been entirely the founder 
of his own fortune, which by marriage he had acquired and by 
oeconomy improved. I stated to him that my friend and cousin 
Mr. Richard Reynolds of Paxton in Huntingdonshire was his natural 
heir, and a man of most unexceptionable worth and good charac- 
ter: he did not deny it, but he was Avealthy and childless, and he 
had bequeathed it to me, as his will would testify, twenty years 
ago, as being the representative of the maternal branch of his fa- 
mily : in fine he required of me to accompany him to my convey- 
ancer, and direct a positive deed of gift to be drawn up, for which 
purpose he had brought his title deeds with him, and should leave 
them in my hands. He added in further vindication of his motives, 
that my father had been ever his most valued friend, that he had 
constantly watched my conduct and scrutinised my character, 
although he had not seen occasion to establish any personal ac- 
quaintance with me. Upon this explanation, and the evidence of 
his having inherited no atom of his fortune from his paternal line, 
I accepted his bounty so far as to appoint the next morning for 

calling 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 241 

calling on Mr. Heron, who then had chambers in Gray's Inn, when 
I would state the case to him, and refer myself to his judgment and 
good counsel. The result of my conference with the lately deceased 
Sir Richard Heron was the insertion of a clause of resumption, em- 
powering the donor to revoke his deed at any future time when he 
should see fit, and this clause I particularly pointed out to my be- 
nefactor when he signed the deed. 

It was with difficulty I prevailed upon him to admit it, and can 
witness to the uneasiness it gave him, whilst he prophetically said 
I had left him exposed to the solicitations and remonstrances of his 
nephews, and that the time might come, when in the debility of 
age and irresolution of mind, he might be pressed into a revocation 
of what he had decided upon as the most deliberate act of his 
life. 

My kind old friend stood a long siege before he suffered his 
prediction to take place ; for it was not till after nearly ten years of 
uninterrupted cordiality, that, weak and wearied out by importu- 
nity, he capitulated with his besiegers, and sending his nephew into 
my house in Queen-Ann-Street unexpectedly one morning, sur- 
prised me with a demand, that I would render back the whole of 
his title deeds: I delivered them up exactly as I had received them ; 
his messenger put them into his hackney coach and departed. 

In consequence of this proceeding I addressed the following 
letter to the Reverend Mr. Decimus Reynolds at Clophill in Bed- 
fordshire. 

ii " Queen- 



U2 MEMOIRS OF 

" Queen-Ann-Street 
" Dear Sir, " Monday 13th Jan. 1779- 

" I received your letter by the conveyance of Major 
"George Reynolds, and in obedience to your commands have re- 
" signed into his hands all your title deeds, entrusted to my cus- 
" tody. I would have had a schedule taken of them by Mr. Kip- 
" ling for your better satisfaction and security, but as your direc- 
" tions were peremptory, and Major Reynolds, who was ill, might 
" have been prejudiced by any delay, I thought it best to put them 
" into his hands without further form, which be assured I have 
" done without the omission of one, for they have lain under seal 
" at my banker's ever since they have been committed to my 



" care. 



" Whatever motives may govern you, dear Sir, for recalling 
" either your confidence, or your bounty, from me and my family, 
" be assured you will still possess and retain my gratitude and 
" esteem. I have only a second time lost a father, and I am now 
" too much in the habit of disappointment and misfortune, not to 
" acquiesce with patience under the dispensation. 

" You well can recollect, that your first bounty was unexpected 
" and unsolicited : it would have been absolute, if I had not 
" thought it for my reputation to make it conditional, and subject 
" to your revocation : perhaps I did not believe you would revoke 
" it, but since you have been induced to wish it, believe me I 
" rejoice in the reflection, that every thing has been done by me 
" for your accommodation, and I had rather my children should 

" inherit 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 243 

" inherit an honourable poverty, than an ample patrimony, which 
" caused the giver of it one moment of regret. 

" I believe I have some few papers still at Tet worth, which I" 
" received from you in the country. I shall shortly go down thi- 
" ther, and will wait upon you with them. At the same time, if 
" you wish to have the original conveyance of your lands, as drawn 
" up by Sir Richard Heron, I shall obey you by returning it : the 
" uses being cancelled, the form can be of little value, and I 
" can bear in memory your former goodness without such a remem- 
" brancer. 

" Mrs. Cumberland and my daughters join me in love and re- 
" spects to you and Mrs. Reynolds, whom by this occasion I beg 
" to thank for all her kindness to me and mine. I spoke yesterday 
" to Sir Richard Heron" [Sir Richard Heron was Chief Secretary in 
Ireland ] " and pressed with more than common earnestness upon 
" him to fulfil your wishes in favour of Mr. Decimus Reynolds in 
" Ireland. It would be much satisfaction to me to hear the deeds 
" came safe to hand, and I hope you will favour me with a line to 
" say so. 

" I am, &c. &c. 

" R. C." 

I have been the more particular in the detail of this transaction, 
because I had been unfairly represented by a relation, whom in the 
former part of these memoirs I have recorded as the friend of my 
youth ; a man, whom I dearly loved, and towards whom I had 
conducted myself through the whole progress of this affair with the 

i i 2 strictest 



244 MEMOIRS OF 

strictest honour and good faith, voluntarily subjecting myself, the 
father of six children, to be deprived of a valuable gift, which 
the bestower of it wished to have been absolute and irrevocable. 

That relation is yet living, and by some few years an older man 
than I am. Though I may have ceased to live in his remembrance, 
he has not lost his place in my affection and regard. I wish him 
health and happiness for the remainder of his days, and, in the 
perfect consciousness of having merited more kindness than I have 
received, bid him heartily farewel. 

There was more celebrity attached to the success of a new play 
in the days, of which I am speaking, than in the present time, 
when— 

Portents and prodigies are grown so frequent, 
That they have lost their name. 

The happy hit of The West-Indian drew a considerable resort 
of the friends and followers of the Muses to my house. I was su- 
perlatively blest in a wife, who conducted my family with due at- 
tention to my circumstances, yet with every elegance and comfort, 
that could render it a welcome and agreeable rendezvous to my 
guests. I had six children, whose birthdays were comprised within 
the period of six years, and they were by no means trained and 
educated with that laxity of discipline, which renders so many houses 
terrible to the visitor, and almost justifies Foote in his professed ve- 
neration for the character of Herod. My young ones stood like 
little soldiers to be reviewed by those, who wished to have them 
drawn up for inspection, and were dismissed like soldiers at a word. 

Few 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 245 

Few parents had more excuse for being vain than my wife and I 
had, for I may be allowed to say my daughters even then gave pro- 
mise of that grace and beauty, for which they afterwards became 
so generally and conspicuously noticed ; and my four boys were not 
behind them in form or feature, though hot climates and hard duty 
by sea and land, in the service of their king and country, have laid 
two of them in distant graves, and rendered the survivors war-worn 
veterans before their time. Even poor Fitzherbert, my unhappy 
and lamented friend, with all his fond benignity of soul could not 
with his caresses introduce a relaxation of discipline in the ranks of 
our small infantry; and though Garrick could charm a circle of 
them about him whilst he acted the turkey-cocks, and peacocks and 
water-wagtails to their infinite and undescribable amusement, yet 
at the word or even look of the mother, hi motus animorum were in- 
stantly composed, and order re-established, whenever it became time 
to release their generous entertainer from the trouble of his exer- 
tions. 

Ah ! I would wish the world to believe, that they take but a 
very short and impartial estimate of that departed character, who 
only appreciate him as the best actor in the world : he was more 
and better than that excellence alone could make him by a thou- 
sand estimable qualities, and much as I enjoyed his company, I 
have been more gratified by the emanations of his heart than by the 
sallies of his fancy and imagination. Nature had done so much 
for him, that he could not help being an actor; she gave him a 
(nunc of so manageable a proportion, and from its flexibility so 

perfectly 



246 MEMOIRS OF 

perfectly under command, that by its aptitude and elasticity he 
could draw it out to fit any sizes of character, that tragedy could 
offer to him, and contract it to any scale of ridiculous diminution, 
that his Abel Drugger, Scrub or Fribble could require of him to 
sink it to. His eye in the mean time was so penetrating, so speak- 
ing ; his brow so moveable, and all his features so plastic, and so 
accommodating, that wherever his mind impelled them they would 
go, and before his tongue could give the text, his countenance 
would express the spirit and the passion of the part he was encharg- 
ed with. 

I always studied the assortment of the characters, who honoured 
me with their company, so as never to bring uncongenial humours 
into contact with each other. How often have I seen all the ob- 
jects of society frustrated by inattention to the proper grouping of 
the guests ! The sensibility of some men of genius is so quick and 
captious, that you must first consider whom they can be happy 
with, before you can promise yourself any happiness with them. A 
rivalry in wit and humour will oftentimes render both parties silent, 
and put them on their guard ; if a chance hit, or lucky sail} 7 , on the 
part of a competitor, engrosses the applause of the table, ten to 
one if the stricken cock ever crows upon the pit again : a matter- 
of-fact man will make a pleasant fellow sullen, and a sullen fellow, 
if provoked by raillery, will disturb the comforts of the whole 
society. 

It is tiresome listening to the nonsense of those, who can talk 
nothing else, but nonsense talked by men of wit and understanding, 

in 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 247 

in the hour of relaxation, is of the very finest essence of convivia- 
lity, and a treat delicious to those, who have the sense to compre- 
hend it. I have known, and could name many, who understood 
this art in its perfection, but as it implies a trust in the company, 
not always to be risked, their practice of it was not very frequent. 

Raillery is of all weapons the most dangerous and too-edged ; of 
course it ought never to be handled, but by a gentleman, and never 
should be played with, but upon a gentleman ; the familiarity of a 
low-born vulgar man is dreadful ; his raillery, his jocularity, like the 
shaking of a water-spaniel, can never fail to soil you with some 
sprinkling of the dunghill, out of which he sprung. 

A disagreement about a name or a date will mar the best story, 
that was ever put together. Sir Joshua Reynolds luckily could not 
hear an interrupter of this sort ; Johnson would not hear, or if he 
heard him, would not heed him ; Soame Jenyns heard him, heeded 
him, set him right, and took up his tale, where he had left it, with- 
out any diminution of its humour, adding only a few more twists to 
his snuff-box, a few more taps upon the lid of it, with a prepara- 
tory grunt or two, the invariable forerunners of the amenity, that 
was at the heels of them. He was the man, who bore his part in 
all societies with the most even temper and undisturbed hilarity of 
all the good companions, whom I ever knew. He came into your 
house at the very moment you had put upon your card ; he dress- 
ed himself to do your party honour in all the colours of the jay ; 
his lace indeed had long since lost its lustre, but his coat had faith- 
fully retained its cut since the days, when gentlemen embroidered 

figured 



248 MEMOIRS OF 

figured velvets with short sleeves, boot cuffs and buckram skirts ; 
as nature had cast him in the exact mould of an ill-made pair of 
stiff stays, he followed her so close in the fashion of his coat, that 
it was doubted if he did not wear them : because he had a protu- 
berant wen just under his pole, he wore a wig, that did not cover 
above half his head. His eyes were protruded like the eyes of the 
lobster, who wears them at the end of his feelers, and yet there 
was room between one of these and his nose for another wen that 
added nothing to his beauty ; yet I heard this good man very inno- 
cently remark, when Gibbon published his history, that he wonder- 
ed any body so ugly could write a book. 

Such was the exterior of a man, who was the charm of the circle, 
and gave a zest to every company he came into ; his pleasantry 
was of a sort peculiar to himself; it harmonized with every thing ; 
it was like the bread to our dinner ; you did not perhaps make it 
the whole, or principal part, of your meal, but it was an admirable 
and wholesome auxiliary to your other viands. Soame Jenyns told 
you no long stories, engrossed not much of your attention, and was 
not angry with those that did ; his thoughts were original, and were 
apt to have a very whimsical affinity to the paradox in them : he 
wrote verses upon dancing, and prose upon the origin of evil, yet 
he was a very indifferent metaphysician and a worse dancer ; ill na- 
ture and personality, with the single exception of his lines upon 
Johnson, I never heard fall from his lips ; those lines I have for- 
gotten, though I believe I was the first person, to whom he recited 
them; they were very bad, but he had been told that Johnson ridi- 
culed 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 249 

culed his metaphysics, and some of us had just then been maki ig 
extemporary epitaphs upon each other : though his wit was harm- 
less, yet the general cast of it was ironical ; there was a terseness in 
his repartees, that had a play of words as well as of thought, as 
when speaking of the difference between laying out money upon 
land, or purchasing into the funds, he said, " One was principal 
" without interest, and the other interest without principal/' Cer- 
tain it is he had a brevity of expression, that never hung upon the 
ear, and you felt the point in the very moment that he made the 
push. It was rather to be lamented that his lady Mrs. Jenyns had 
so great a respect for his good sayings, and so imperfect a recollec- 
tion of them, for though she alwaj's prefaced her recitals of them 
with — as Mr. Jenyns says — it was not always what Mr. Jenyns said, 
and never, I am apt to think, as Mr. Jenyns said ; but she was an 
excellent old lady, and twirled her fan with as muc'i mechanical 
address as her ingenious husband twirled his snuff box. 

The brilliant vivacity of Garrick was subject to be clouded ; 
little flying stories had too much of his attention, and more of his 
credit than they should have had ; and certainly there were too 
many babblers, who had access to his ear. There was some precau- 
tion necessary as to the company you associated with him at your 
table ; Fitzherbert understood that in general admirably well, yet 
he told me of a certain day, when Garrick, who had perhaps been 
put a little out of his way, and was missing from the company, was 
found in the back yard acting a turkey-cock to a black boy, who 
was capering for joy and continually crying out — " Massa Garrick, 

K K " do 



250 MEMOIRS OF 

" do so make me laugh : I shall die with laughing — " The story 
I have no doubt is true ; but I rather think it indicates the very 
contrary from a ruffled temper, and marks good humour in its 
strongest light. To give amusement to children, and to take plea- 
sure in the act, is such a symptom of suavity, as can never be mis- 
taken. 

I made a visit with him by his own proposal to JFoote at Par- 
son's Green ; I have heard it said he was reserved and uneasy in his 
company ; I never saw him more at ease and in a happier flow of 
spirits than on that occasion. 

Where a loud-tongued talker was in company, Edmund Burke 
declined all claims upon attention, and Samuel Johnson, whose 
ears were not quick, seldom lent them to his conversation, though 
he loved the man, and admired his talents : I have seen a dull 
damping matter-of-fact man quell the effervescence even of 
Foote's unrivalled humour. 

But I remember full well, when Garrick and I made him the 
visit above-mentioned poor Foote had something worse than a dull 
man to struggle with, and matter of fact brought home to him in a 
way, that for a time entirely overthrew his spirits, and most com- 
pletely frighted him from his propriety. We had taken him by 
surprise, and of course were with him some hours before dinner, 
to make sure of our own if we had missed of his. He seemed over- 
joyed to see us, engaged us to stay, walked with us in his garden, 
and read to us some scenes roughly sketched for his Maid of Bath. 
His dinner was quite good enough, and his wine superlative : Sir 

Robert 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 251 

Robert Fletcher, who had served in the East Indies, dropt in be- 
fore dinner and made the fourth of our party: When we had passed 
about two hours in perfect harmony and hilarity, Garrick called 
for his tea, and Sir Robert rose to depart: there was an unlucky 
screen in the room, that hid the door, and behind which Sir Ro- 
bert hid himself for some purpose, whether natural or artificial I 
know not ; but Foote, supposing him gone, instantly began to play 
off his ridicule at the expence of his departed guest. I must con- 
fess it was (in the cant phrase) a way that he had, and just now a 
very unlucky way, for Sir Robert bolting from behind the screen, 
cried out — " I am not gone, Foote ; spare me till I am out of 
" hearing ; and now with your leave I will stay till these gentlemen 
" depart, and then you shall amuse me at their cost, as you have 
" amused them at mine." 

A remonstrance of this sort was an electric shock, that could 
not be parried. No wit could furnish an evasion, no explanation 
could suffice for an excuse. The offended gentleman was to the 
full as angry as a brave man ought to be with an unfortunate wit, 
who possessed very little of that quality, which he abounded in. 
This event, which deprived Foote of all presence of mind, -gave oc- 
casion to Garrick to display his genius and good nature in their 
brightest lustre : I never saw him in a more amiable light ; the infi- 
nite address and ingenuity, that he exhibited, in softening the en- 
raged guest, and reconciling him to pass over an affront, as gross 
as could well be put upon a man, were at once the most comic and 
the most complete I ever witnessed. Why was not James Boswell 

k k 2 present 



252 MEMOIRS OF 

present to have recorded the dialogue and the action of the scene? 
Mj stupid head only carried away the effect of it. It was as if 
Diomed, (who being the son of Tydeus was I conclude a great hero 
in a small compass) had been shielding Thersites from the wrath of 
Ajax; and so wrathful was our Ajax, that if I did not recollect 
there was a certain actor at Delhi, who in the height of the mas- 
sacre charmed away the furious passions of Nadir Shaw, and saved 
a remnant of the city, I should say this was a victory without a 
parallel. I hope Foote was very grateful, but when a man has been 
completely humbled, he is not very fond of recollecting it. 

There was a gentleman of very general notoriety at this time, 
who had the address to collect about him a considerable resort of 
men of wit and learning at no other expence on his part than of the 
meat and drink, which they consumed ; for as he had no predilection 
for reading their works, he did not put himself to the charge of 
buying them. The gentleman himself was of the Scottish nation ; 
in that nobody could be mistaken ; all beyond that was matter of 
conjecture, save only that it was universally understood that Mr. 
Thomas Mills was under the protection of the great Lord Mansfield. 
Having been Town-Major of Quebec, he took the title of a field- 
officer, and having been squire to a knight of the Bath on the cere- 
mony of an installation, he became Sir Thomas, and a knight him- 
self. It was chiefly through my acquaintance with this gentleman 
that I became a member of a very pleasant society, (for we never 
had the establishment of a club) who used to dine together upon 
stated days at the British Coffee-House, then kept by Mrs. Ander- 

v son, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 253 

son, a person of great respectability. Many of the members of this 
society were men of the first eminence for their talents, and as there 
was no exclusion in our system of any member's friend or friends, 
our parties were continually enlivened by the introduction of new 
guests, who of course furnished new sources for conversation, from 
which politics and party seemed by general consent decidedly 
proscribed. Foote, Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Goldsmith, Garrick, 
Macpherson, Doctors Carlisle, Robinson, Beattie, Caleb White- 
foord, with many others, resorted there as they saw fit. 

In one of these meetings it was suggested and recommended to 
me to take up the character of a North-Briton, as I had those of 
an Irishman and West-Indian. I observed, in answer to this, that 
I had not the same chance for success as I had in my sketch of 
O'Flaherty, for I had never resided in Scotland, and should be per- 
fectly to seek for the dialect of my hero. " How could that be," 
Fitzherbert observed, " when I was in the very place to find it, 
(alluding to the British Coffee-House and the company we were in) 
" however," he added, " give your Scotchman character, and take 
" your chance for dialect. If you bring a Roman on the stage, you 
" don't make him speak Latin — " " No, no," cried Foote, " and 
" if you don't make him wear breeches, Garrick will be much 
" obliged to you. When I was at Stranraer I went to the Kirk, 
" where the Mess-John was declaiming most furiously against lux- 
" ury, and, as heaven shall judge me, there was not a pair of shoes 
" in the whole cono-resation." 

This turned the conversation from my comedy to matters more 

amusing, 



254 MEMOIRS OF 

amusing, but the suggestion had taken hold of my fancy, and I 
began to frame the character of Colin Macleod upon the model of 
a Highland servant, who with scrupulous integrity, and a great 
deal of nationality about him, managed all the domestic affairs of 
Sir Thomas Mills's househould, and being a great favourite of every 
body, who resorted there, became in time, as it were, one of the 
company. With no other guide for the dialect of my Macleod than 
what the Scotch characters of the stage supplied me with, I en- 
dowed him with a good heart, and sent him to seek his fortune. 

I was aware I had some little fame at stake, and bestowed my 
utmost care and attention upon the writing of this comedy: I 
availed myself of Mr. Garricks judgment at all proper intervals as 
I advanced towards the completion of it. This I have acknow- 
ledged in the advertisement, and though I did not form sanguine 
hopes of its obtaining equal success with The West-Indian in re- 
presentation, I confess I flattered myself that I had outgone that 
drama in point of composition. When I found that Garrick 
thought of it as I did, I ventured to avow my preference in the 
prologue. I have been reading it over with attention, and so many 
years have passed since I wrote it, that. I have very little of the 
feeling of the author when I speak of it. I rather think I was right 
in giving it the preference to the West-Indian, though I am far 
from sure I was unprejudiced in my judgment at that time. An 
author, who is conscious that his new work will not be equally 
popular with his preceding one, will be very apt to imitate the 
dealer, who, having a pair of horses to sell, will bestow all his 

praise 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 255 

praise upon the worst, and leave the best to recommend himself. I 
verily believe if The Fashionable Lover was not my composition, 
and I were called upon to give my opinion of it, (speaking only of 
its merits, and reserving to myself my opinion of its faults) I should 
be inclined to say it was a drama of a moral, grave and tender cast, 
inasmuch as I discovered in it sentiments, laudably directed against 
national prejudice, breach of trust, seduction, gaming, and the 
general dissipation of the time then present. I could not deny it a 
preference to the West-Indian in a moral light, and perhaps, if I 
were in very good humour with its author, I might be tempted to 
say that in point of diction it approached very nearly to what I 
conceived to be the true style of comedy— Joca non infra soccum, 
seria non usque cothurnum. 

At the time when this play came out, the demands of the stage 
for novelty were much limited, and of course the excluded many 
had full leisure to wreak their malice on the selected few. I was 
silly enough to be in earnest and make serious appeals against ca- 
villers and slanderers below notice: this induced my friend Garrick 
to call me the man without a skin, and sure enough I should have 
been without a skin, if the newspaper beadles could have had their 
will of me, for I constantly stood out against them, and would 
never ask quarter. I have been long since convinced of my folly, 
but I am not at all ashamed of my principle, for I alwa} r s made 
common cause with my contemporaries, and never separated 
my own particular interests from those of literature in general, as 
will in part appear by the following paragraph, extracted from the 

advertisement, 



256 MEMOIRS OF 

advertisement, which I prefixed to this comedy on its publication — 
" Whether the reception of this comedy," I therein say, " may be 
" such as shall encourage me to future efforts is of small conse- 
" quence to the public, but if it should chance to obtain some little 
" credit with the candid part of mankind, and its author for once 
" escape without those personal and unworthy aspersions, which 
" writers, who hide their own names, fling on them, who publish 
" theirs, my success, it may be hoped, will draw forth others to 
" the undertaking with far superior requisites ; and that there are 
" numbers under this description, whose sensibility keeps them si- 
" lent, I am well persuaded when I consider how general it is for 
" men of the finest parts to be subject to the finest feelings ; and I 
" would submit whether this unhandsome practice of abuse is not 
" calculated to create in the minds of men of genius not only a 
" disinclination to engage in dramatic compositions, but a languid 
" and unanimated manner of executing them, &c. &c. — " 

The remark is just, but I remember Lord Mansfield on a certain 
occasion said to me, that if a single syllable from his pen could at 
once confute an anonymous defamer, he would not gratify him with 
the word. This might be a very becoming rule for him to follow, 
and yet it might by no means apply to a man of my humble sort, 
and in truth there was a filthy nest of vipers at that time in league 
against every name, to which any degree of celebrity was attached, 
and they kept their hold upon the papers till certain of their leaders 
were compelled to fly their country, some to save their ears and 
some to save their necks. They were well known, and I am sorry 

to 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 257 

to say some men, whose minds should have been superior to any 
terrors they could hold out, made suit to them for favour, nay even 
combined with them on some occasions, and were mean enough to 
enroll themselves under their despicable banners. It is to the ho- 
nour of the present time, and infinitely to the repose of the present 
writers for the stage, that all these dirty doings are completely done 
away, and an aera of candour and human kindness has succeeded to 
one, that was scandalously its opposite. 

At this time I did not know Oliver Goldsmith even by person ; 
I think our first meeting chanced to be at the British-CofFee-House ; 
when we came together, we very speedily coalesced, and I believe 
he forgave me for all the little fame I had got by the success of my 
West-Indian, which had put him to some trouble, for it was not his 
nature to be unkind, and I had soon an opportunity of convincing 
him how incapable I was of harbouring resentment, and how zea- 
lously I took my share in what concerned his interest and reputa- 
tion. That he was fantastically and whimsically vain all the world 
knows, but there was no settled and inherent malice in his heart. 
He was tenacious to a ridiculous extreme of certain pretensions, 
that did not, and by nature could not, belong to him, and at the 
same time inexcusably careless of the fame, which he had powers 
to command. His table-talk was, as Garrick aptly compared it, 
like that of a parrot, whilst he wrote like Apollo ; he had gleams of 
eloquence, and at times a majesty of thought, but in general his 
tongue and his pen had two very different styles of talking. What 
foibles he had he took no pains to conceal, the good qualities of 

l l his 



258 MEMOIRS OF 

his heart were too frequently obscured by the carelessness of his 
conduct, and. the frivolity of his manners. Sir Joshua Reynolds 
was very good to him, and would have drilled him into better trim 
and order for society, if he would have been amenable, for Rey- 
nolds was a perfect gentleman, had good sense, great propriety with 
all the social attributes, and all the graces of hospitality, equal to 
any man. He well knew how to appretiate men of talents, and how 
near a kin the Muse of poetry was to that art, of which he was so 
eminent a master. From Goldsmith he caught the subject of his 
famous Ugolino ; what aids he got from others, if he got any, were 
worthily bestowed and happily applied. 

There is something in Goldsmith's prose, that to my ear is un- 
commonly sweet and harmonious ; it is clear, simple, easy to be 
understood ; we never want to read his period twice over, except 
for the pleasure it bestows ; obscurity never calls us back to a re- 
petition of it. That he was a poet there is no doubt, but the pau- 
city of his verses does not allow us to rank him in that high station, 
where his genius might have carried him. There must be bulk, 
variety and grandeur of design to constitute a first-rate poet. The 
Deserted Village, Traveller and Hermit are all specimens beautiful 
as such, but they are only birds eggs on a string, and eggs of small 
birds too. One great magnificent whole must be accomplished be- 
fore we can pronounce upon the maker to be the o iroi^g. Pope 
himself never earned this title by a work of any magnitude but his 
Homer, and that being a translation only constitutes him an accom- 
plished versifier. Distress drove Goldsmith upon undertakings, nei- 
ther 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 259 

ther congenial with his studies, nor worthy of his talents. I re- 
member him, when in his chamber in the Temple, he shewed me 
the beginning of his Animated Nature ; it was with a sigh, such as 
genius draws, when hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge 
for bread, and talk of birds and beasts and creeping things, which 
Pidcock's show-man would have done as well. Poor fellow, he 
hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a goose, but 
when he saw it on the table. But publishers hate poetry, and Pa- 
ternoster-Row is not Parnassus. Even the mighty Doctor Hill, 
who was not a very delicate feeder, could not make a dinner out of 
the press till by a happy transformation into Hannah Glass he turn- 
ed himself into a cook, and sold receipts for made-dishes to all the 
savoury readers in the kingdom. Then indeed the press acknow- 
ledged him second in fame only to John Bunyan ; his feasts kept 
pace in sale with Nelson's fasts, and when his own name was fairly 
written out of credit, he wrote himself into immortality under an 
alias. Now though necessity, or I should rather say the desire of 
finding money for a masquerade, drove Oliver Goldsmith upon 
abridging histories and turning Buffon into English, yet I much 
doubt if without that spur he -would ever have put his Pegasus into 
action ; no, if he had been rich, the world would have been poorer 
than it is by the loss of all the treasures of his genius and the con- 
tributions of his pen. 

Who will say that Johnson himself would have been such a 
champion in literature, such a front-rank soldier in the fields of 
fame, if he had not been pressed into the service, and driven on to 

l r. 2 glory 



260 MEMOIRS OF 

glory with the bayonet of sharp necessity pointed at his back ? If 
fortune had turned him into a field of clover, he would have laid 
down and rolled in it. The mere manual labour of writing would 
not have allowed his lassitude and love of ease to have taken the 
pen out of the inkhorn, unless the cravings of hunger had reminded 
him that he must fill the sheet before he saw the table cloth. He 
might indeed have knocked down Osbourne for a blockhead, but 
he would not have knocked him down with a folio of his own 
writing. He would perhaps have been the dictator of a club, and 
wherever he sate down to conversation, there must have been that 
splash of strong bold thought about him, that we might still have 
had a collectanea after his death ; but of prose I guess not much, 
of works of labour none, of fancy perhaps something more, espe- 
cially of poetry, which under favour I conceive was not his tower 
of strength. I think we should have had his Rasselas at all events, 
for he was likely enough to have written at Voltaire, and brought 
the question to the test, if infidelity is any aid to wit. An orator 
he must have been; not improbably a parliamentarian, and, if 
such, certainly an oppositionist, for he preferred to talk against the 
tide. He would indubitably have been no member of the Whig 
Club, no partisan of Wilkes, no friend of Hume, no believer in 
Macpherson ; he would have put up prayers for early rising, and 
laid in bed all day, and with the most active resolutions possible 
been the most indolent mortal living. He was a good man by na- 
ture, a great man by genius, we are now to enquire what he was by 
Compulsion. 

Johnson's 



v- RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 261 

Johnson's first style was naturally energetic, his middle style 
was turgid to a fault, his latter style was softened down and har- 
monized into periods, more tunefull and more intelligible. His 
execution was rapid, yet his mind was not easily provoked into ex- 
ertion ; the variety we find in his writings was not the variety of 
choice arising from the impulse of his proper genius, but tasks im- 
posed upon him by the dealers in ink, and contracts on his part 
submitted to in satisfaction of the pressing calls of hungry want ; 
for, painful as it is to relate, I have heard that illustrious scholar 
assert (and he never varied from the truth of fact) that he subsisted 
himself for a considerable space of time upon the scanty pittance 
of fourpence halfpenny per day. How melancholy to reflect that 
his vast trunk and stimulating appetite were to be supported by 
what will barely feed the weaned infant ! Less, much less, than 
Master Betty has earned in one night, would have cheered the 
mighty mind, and maintained the athletic body of Samuel Johnson 
in comfort and abundance for a twelvemonth. Alas ! I am not fit 
to paint his character; nor is there need of it; Etiam mortuus 
loquitur : every man, who can buy a book, has bought a Boswell ; 
Johnson is known to all the reading world. I also knew him well, 
respected him highly, loved him sincerely : it was never my chance 
to see him in those moments of moroseness and ill humour, which 
are imputed to him, perhaps with truth, for who would slander 
him ? But I am not warranted by any experience of those humours 
to speak of him otherwise than of a friend, who always met me 
with kindness, and from whom I never separated without regret. 

When 



262 MEMOIRS OF 

When I sought his company he had no capricious excuses for with- 
holding it, but lent himself to every invitation with cordiality, and 
brought good humour with him, that gave life to the circle he was 
in. He presented himself always in his fashion of apparel; a brown 
coat with metal buttons, black waistcoat and worsted stockings, 
with a flowing bob wig was the style of his wardrobe, but they were 
in perfectly good trim, and with the ladies, which he generally met, 
he had nothing of the slovenly philosopher about him ; he fed 
heartily, but not voraciously, and was extremely courteous in his 
commendations of any dish, that pleased his palate ; he suffered 
his next neighbour to squeeze the China oranges into his wine glass 
after dinner, which else perchance had gone aside, and trickled 
into his shoes, for the good man had neither straight sight nor 
steady nerves. 

At the tea table he had considerable demands upon his favour- 
ite beverage, and I remember when Sir Joshua Reynolds at my 
house reminded him that he had drank eleven cups, he replied — 
" Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number 
" up my cups of tea ?" And then laughing in perfect good humour he 
added — " Sir, I should have released the lady from any further 
" trouble, if it had not been for your remark ; but you have re- 
" minded me that I want one of the dozen, and I must request 
" Mrs. Cumberland to round up my number — " When he saw the 
readiness and complacency, with which my wife obeyed his call, 
he turned a kind and cheerful look upon her and said — " Madam, 
" I must tell you for your comfort you have escaped much better 

" than 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 263 

" than a certain lady did awhile ago, upon whose patience I in- 
" truded greatly more than I have done on yours ; but the lady 
" asked me for no other purpose but to make a Zany of me, and set 
" me gabbling to a parcel of people I knew nothing of; so, madam, 
" I had my revenge of her; for I swallowed five and twenty cups 
" of her tea, and did not treat her with as many words — " I can 
only say my wife would have made tea for him as long as the New 
River could have supplied her with water. 

It was on such occasions he was to be seen in his happiest mo- 
ments, when animated by the cheering attention of friends, whom 
he liked, he would give full scope to those talents for narration, in 
which I verily think he was unrivalled both in the brilliancy of his 
wit, the flow of his humour and the energy of his language. Anec- 
dotes of times past, scenes of his own life, and characters of hu- 
mourists, enthusiasts, crack-brained projectors and a variety of 
strange beings, that he had chanced upon, when detailed by him 
at length, and garnished with those episodical remarks, sometimes 
comic, sometimes grave, which he would throw in with infinite 
fertility of fancy, were a treat, which though not always to be pur- 
chased by five and twenty cups of tea, I have often had the happi- 
ness to enjoy for less than half the number. He was easily led into 
topics; it was not easy to turn him from them; but who would 
wish it ? If a man wanted to shew himself off by getting up and 
riding upon him, he was sure to run restive and kick him off; you 
might as safely have backed Bucephalus, before Alexander had 
lunged him. Neither did he always like to he over-fondled ; when 

a certain 



264 MEMOIRS OF 

a Gertain gentleman out-acted his part in this way, he is said t& 
have demanded of him—" What provokes your risibility, Sir? 
" Have I said any thing that you understand ?— -Then I ask pardon 
" Of the rest of the company — " But this is Henderson's anecdote 
of him, and I won't swear he did not make it himself. The follow- 
ing apology however I myself drew from him, when speaking of his 
tour I observed to him upon some passages as rather too sharp upon 
a country and people, who had entertained him so handsomely — 
" Do you think so, Cumbey ?" he replied. " Then I give you leave 
" to say, and you may quote me for it, that there are more gentle- 
" men in Scotland than there are shoes.—" 

But I don't relish these sayings, and I am to blame for retailing 
them ; we can no more judge of men by these droppings from their 
lips, than we can guess at the contents of the river Nile by a pitcher 
of its water. If we were to estimate the wise men of Greece by 
Laertius's scraps of their sayings, what a parcel of old women 
should we account them to have been ! 

The expanse of matter, which Johnson had found room for in 
his intellectual storehouse, the correctness with Avhich he had as- 
sorted it, and the readiness with which he could turn to an} r article that 
he wanted to make present use of, were the properties in him, which 
I contemplated with the most admiration. Some have called him a 
savage; they were only so far right in the resemblance, as that, 
like the savage, he never came into suspicious company without his 
spear in his hand and his bow and quiver at his back. In quickness 
of intellect few ever equalled him, in profundity of erudition many 

have 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 265 

have surpassed him. I do not think he had a pure and classical 
taste, nor was apt to be best pleased with the best authors, but as a 
general scholar he ranks very high. When I would have consulted 
him upon certain points of literature, whilst I was making my col- 
lections from the Greek dramatists for my essays in The Observer, 
he candidly acknowledged that his studies had not lain amongst 
them, and certain it is there is very little show of literature in his 
Ramblers, and in the passage, where he quotes Aristotle, he has 
not correctly given the meaning of the original. But this was 
merely the result of haste and inattention, neither is he so to be 
measured, for he had so many parts and properties of scholarship 
about him, that you can only fairly review him as a man of general 
knowledge. As a poet his translations of Juvenal gave him a name 
in the world, and gained him the applause of Pope. He was a 
writer of tragedy, but his Irene gives him no conspicuous rank in 
that department. As an essayist he merits more consideration ; his 
Ramblers are in every body's hands ; about them opinions vary, and 
I rather believe the style of these essays is not now considered as a 
good model ; this he corrected in his more advanced age, as may 
be seen in his Lives of the Poets, where his diction, though occa- 
sionally elaborate and highly metaphorical, is not nearly so inflated 
and ponderous, as in the Ramblers. He was an acute and able 
critic ; the enthusiastic admirers of Milton and the friends of Gray 
will have something to complain of, but criticism is a task, which 
no man executes to all men's satisfaction. His selection of a certain 
passage in the Mourning Bride of Congreve, which he extols so 

m m rapturously, 



266 MEMOIRS OF 

rapturously, is certainly a most unfortunate sample ; but unless the 
oversights of a critic are less pardonable than those of other men, 
we may pass this over in a work of merit, which abounds in beau- 
ties far more prominent than its defects, and much more pleasing 
to contemplate. In works professedly of fancy he is not very copi- 
ous ; yet in his Rasselas we have much to admire, and enough to 
make us wish for more. It is the work of an illuminated mind, and 
offers many wise and deep reflections, cloathed in beautiful and 
harmonious diction. We are not indeed familiar with such per- 
sonages as Johnson has imagined for the characters of his fable, 
but if we are not exceedingly interested in their story, we are infi- 
nitely gratified with their conversation and remarks. In conclusion, 
Johnson's sera was not wanting in men to be distinguished for their 
talents, yet if one was to be selected out as the first great literary 
character of the time, I believe all voices would concur in naming 
him. Let me here insert the following lines, descriptive of his 
character, though not long since written by me and to be found in 
a public print 

" On Samuel Johnson. 

" Herculean strength and a Stentorian voice, 
" Of wit a fund, of words a countless choice: 
" In learning rather various than profound, 
" In truth intrepid, in religion sound : 
" A trembling form and a distorted sight, 
" But firm in judgment and in genius bright ; 

In 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 267 

" In controversy seldom known to spare, 
" But humble as the Publican in prayer ; 
" To more, than merited his kindness, kind, 
" And, though in manners harsh, of friendly mind; 
" Deep ting'd with melancholy's blackest shade, 
" And, though prepar'd to die, of death afraid — 
" Such Johnson was ; of him with justice vain, 
" When will this nation see his like again ?" 
Oliver Goldsmith began at this time to write for the stage, and 
it is to be lamented that he did not begin at an earlier period of life 
to turn his genius to dramatic compositions, and much more to be 
lamented, that, after he had begun, the succeeding period of his 
life was so soon cut off. There is no doubt but his genius, when 
more familiarised to the business, would have inspired him to ac- 
complish great things. His first comedy of The Good-natured Man 
was read and applauded in its manuscript by Edmund Burke, 
and the circle, in which he then lived and moved : under such 
patronage it came with those testimonials to the director of Co- 
vent Garden theatre, as could not fail to open all the avenues 
to the stage, and bespeak all the favour and attention from the 
performers and the public, that the applauding voice of him, 
whose applause was fame itself, could give it. This comedy has 
enough to justify the good opinion of its literary patron, and secure 
its author against any loss of reputation, for it has the stamp of a 
man of talents upon it, though its popularity with the audience did 
not quite keep pace with the expectations, that were grounded on 

m M 2 the 



263 MEMOIRS OF 

the fiat it had antecedently been honoured with. It was a first 
effort however, and did not discourage its ingenious author from 
invoking his Muse a second time. It was now, whilst his labours 
were in projection, that I first met him at the British Coffee-house, 
as I have already related somewhat out of place. He dined with us 
as a visitor, introduced as I think by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and we 
held a consultation upon the naming of his comedy, which some of 
the company had read, and which he detailed to the rest after his 
manner with a great deal of good humour. Somebody suggested — 
She Stoops to Conquer — and that title was agreed upon. When I 
perceived an embarrassment in his manner towards me, which I 
could readily account for, I lost no time to put him at his ease, and 
I flatter myself I was successful. As my heart was ever warm to- 
wards my contemporaries, I did not counterfeit, but really felt a 
cordial interest in his behalf, and I had soon the pleasure to per- 
ceive that he credited me for my sincerity — " You and I," said he, 
" have very different motives for resorting to the stage. I write 
" for money, and care little about fame — " I was touched by 
this melancholy confession, and from that moment busied myself 
assiduously amongst all my connexions in his cause. The whole 
company pledged themselves to the support of the ingenuous poet, 
and faithfully kept their promise to him. In fact he needed all that 
could be done for him, as Mr. Colrnan, then manager of Covent- 
Garden theatre, protested against the comedy, when as yet he had 
not struck upon a name for it. Johnson at length stood forth in all 
his terrors as champion for the piece, and backed by us his clients 

and 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 269 

and retainers demanded a fair trial. Colman again protested, but, 
with that salvo for his own reputation, liberally lent his stage to 
one of the most eccentric productions, that ever found its way to 
it, and She Stoops to Conquer was put into rehearsal. 

We were not over-sanguine of success, but perfectly determined 
to struggle hard for our author: we accordingly assembled our 
strength at the Shakespear Tavern in a considerable body for an 
early dinner, where Samuel Johnson took the chair at the head of a 
long table, and was the life and soul of the corps : the poet took 
post silently by his side with the Burkes, Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
Fitzherbert, Caleb Whitefoord and a phalanx of North-British pre- 
determined applauders, under the banner of Major Mills, all good 
men and true. Our illustrious president was in inimitable glee, and 
poor Goldsmith that day took all his raillery as patiently and com- 
placently as my friend Boswell would have done any day, or every 
day of his life. In the mean time we did not forget our duty, and 
though we had a better comedy going, in which Johnson was chief 
actor, we betook ourselves in good time to our separate and allotted 
posts, and waited the awful drawing up of the curtain. As our sta- 
tions were pre-concerted, so were our signals for plaudits arranged 
and determined upon in a manner, that gave every one his cue 
where to look for them, and how to follow them up. 

We had amongst us a very worthy and efficient member, long 
since lost to his friends and the world at large, Adam Drummond, 
of amiable memory, who was gifted by nature with the most sono- 
rous, and at the same time the most contagious, laugh, that ever 

echoed 



$70 MEMOIRS OF 

echoed from the human lungs. The neighing of the horse of the 
son of Hystaspes was a whisper to it; the whole thunder of the 
theatre could not drown it. This kind and ingenuous friend fairly 
fore-warned us that he knew no more when to give his fire than the 
cannon did, that was planted on a battery. He desired therefore 
to have a flapper at his elbow, and I had the honour to be deputed 
to that office. I planted him in an upper box, pretty nearly over 
the stage, in full view of the pit and galleries, and perfectly well 
situated to give the echo all its play through the hollows and re- 
cesses of the theatre. The success of our manoeuvres was com- 
plete. All eyes were upon Johnson, who sate in a front row of a 
side box, and when he laughed every body thought themselves 
warranted to roar. In the mean time my friend followed signals 
with a rattle so irresistibly comic, that, when he had repeated it 
several times, the attention of the spectators was so engrossed by 
his person and performances, that the progress of the play seemed 
likely to become a secondary object, and I found it prudent to 
insinuate to him that he might halt his music without any preju- 
dice to the- author ; but alas, it was now too late to rein him in ; he 
had laughed upon my signal where he found no joke, and now un- 
luckily he fancied that he found a joke in almost every thing that 
was said ; so that nothing in nature could be more mal-a-propos 
than some of his bursts every now and then were. These were dan- 
gerous moments, for the pit began to take umbrage ; but we car- 
ried our play through, and triumphed not only over Colman's judg- 
ment, but our own. 

As 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 271 

As the life of poor Oliver Goldsmith was now fast approaching 
to its period, I conclude my account of him with gratitude for the 
epitaph he bestowed on me in his poem called Retaliation. It was 
upon a proposal started by Edmund Burke, that a party of friends, 
who had dined together at Sir Joshua Reynolds's and my house, 
should meet at the St. James's Coffee-House, which accordingly 
took place, and was occasionally repeated with much festivity and 
good fellowship. Dr. Bernard, Dean of Derry, a very amiable and 
old friend of mine, Dr. Douglas, since Bishop of Salisbury, John- 
son, David Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Ed- 
mund and Richard Burke, Hickey, with two or three others con- 
stituted our party. At one of these meetings an idea was suggested 
of extemporary epitaphs upon the parties present ; pen and ink 
were called for, and Garrick off hand wrote an epitaph with a good 
deal of humour upon poor Goldsmith, who was the first in jest, as 
he proved to be in reality, that we committed to the grave. The 
dean also gave him an epitaph, and Sir Joshua illuminated the 
dean's verses with a sketch of his bust in pen and ink, inimitably 
caricatured. Neither Johnson, nor Burke wrote any thing, and 
when I perceived Oliver was rather sore, and seemed to watch me 
with that kind of attention, which indicated his expectation of some- 
thing in the same kind of burlesque with their's, I thought it time to 
press the joke no further, and wrote a few couplets at a side table, 
which when I had finished and was called upon by the company 
to exhibit, Goldsmith with much agitation besought me to spare 
him, and I was about to tear them, when Johnson wrested them 

out 



272 MEMOIRS OF 

out of my hand, and in a loud voice read them at the table. I 
have now lost all recollection of them, and in fact they were little 
worth remembering, but as they were serious and complimentary, 
the effect they had upon Goldsmith was the more pleasing for beincr 
so entirely unexpected. The concluding line, which is the only 
one I can call to mind, was — 

" All mourn the poet, I lament the man — " 

This I recollect, because he repeated it several times, and seem- 
ed much gratified by it. At our next meeting he produced his 
epitaphs as they stand in the little posthumous poem above-men- 
tioned, and this was the last time he ever enjoyed the company of 
his friends. 

As he had served up the company under the similitude of various 
sorts of meat, I had in the mean time figured them under that of 
iiquors, which little poem I rather think was printed, but of this I 
am not sure. Goldsmith sickened and died, and we had one con- 
cluding meeting at my house, when it was decided to publish his 
Retaliation, and Johnson at the same time undertook to write an 
epitaph for our lamented friend, to whom we proposed to erect a 
monument oysubscription in Westminster- Abbey. This epitaph 
Johnson executed; but in the criticism, that was attempted against 
it, and in the Round-Robin signed at Mr. Beauclerc's house I had 
no part. I had no acquaintance with that gentleman, and was never 
in his house in my life. 

Thus died Oliver Goldsmith in his chambers in the Temple at a 
period of life, when his genius was yet in its vigour, and fortune 

seemed 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 273 

seemed disposed to smile upon him. I have heard Dr. Johnson 
relate with infinite humour the circumstance of his rescuing him 
from a ridiculous dilemma by the purchase-money of his Vicar of 
Wakefield, which he sold on his behalf to Dodsley, and, as I think, 
for the sum of ten pounds only. He had run up a debt with his 
landlady for board and lodging of some few pounds, and was at his 
wit's-end how to wipe off the score and keep a roof over his head, 
except by closing with a very staggering proposal on her part, and 
taking his creditor to wife, whose charms were very far from allur- 
ing, whilst her demands were extremely urgent. In this crisis of 
his fate he was found by Johnson in the act of meditating on the 
melancholy alternative before him. He shewed Johnson his manu- 
script of The Vicar of Wakefield, but seemed to be without any 
plan, or even hope, of raising money upon the disposal of it; when 
Johnson cast his eye upon it, he discovered something that gave him 
hope, and immediately took it to Dodsley, who paid down the 
price above-mentioned in ready money, and added an eventual 
condition upon its future sale. Johnson described the precautions 
he took in concealing the amount of the sum he had in hand, which 
he prudently administered to him by a guinea at a time. In the 
event he paid off the landlady's score, and redeemed the person of 
his friend from her embraces. Goldsmith had the joy of finding his 
ingenious work succeed beyond his hopes, and from that time 
began to place a confidence in the resources of his talents, which 
thenceforward enabled him to keep his station in society, and cul- 
tivate the friendship of many eminent persons, who, whilst they 

n n smiled 



274 MEMOIRS OF 

smiled at his eccentricities, esteemed him for his genius and good 
qualities. 

Mj father had been translated to the see of Kilmore, which 
placed him in a more civilised country, and lodged him in a more 
comfortable house. I continued my yearly visits, and again went 
over to Ireland with part of my family, and passed my whole sum- 
mer recess at Kilmore. I had with unspeakable regret perceived 
some symptoms of an alarming nature about him, which seemed to 
indicate the breaking up of a most excellent constitution, which, 
nursed by temperance and regularity, had hitherto been blest with 
such an uninterrupted course of health, that he had never through 
his whole life been confined a single day to his bed, except when 
he had the small pox in his childhood. In all his appetites and 
passions he was the most moderate of men: ever cheerful in his 
family and with his friends, but never yielding to the slightest ex- 
cess. My mother in the mean time had been gradually sinking into 
a state of extreme debility and loss of health, and I plainly saw 
that my father's ceaseless agitation and anxiety on her account had 
deeply affected his constitution. He had flattered me with the 
hope that he would attempt a journey to England with her, and in 
that expectation, when my time was expired, I painfully took leave 
of him — and, alas ! never saw him, or my mother, more. 

In the winter of that same year, whilst I was at Bath by advice 
for my own health, I received the first afflicting intelligence of his 
death from Primate Robinson, who loved him truly and lamented 
him most sincerely. This sad event was speedily succeeded by the 

death 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 275 

death of my mother, whose weak and exhausted frame sunk under 
the blow : those senses so acute, and that mind so richly endowed, 
were in an instant taken from her, and after languishing in that me- 
lancholy state for a short but distressful period, she followed him to 
the grave. 

Thus was I bereft of father and mother without the consolation 
of having paid them the last mournful duties of a son. One surviv- 
ing sister, the best and most benevolent of human beings, attended 
them in their last moments, and performed those duties, which my 
hard fortune would not suffer me to share. 

In a small patch of ground, enclosed with stone walls, adjoin- 
ing to the church-yard of Kilmore, but not within the pale of the 
consecrated ground, my father's corpse was interred beside the grave 
of the venerable and exemplary Bishop Bedel. This little spot, as 
containing the remains of that good and great man, my father had 
fenced and guarded with particular devotion, and he had more 
than once pointed it out to me as his destined grave, saying to me, 
as I well remember, in the words of the Old Prophet of Beth-el, 
" When I am dead, then bury me in this sepulchre, wherein the 
" man of God is buried ; lay my bones beside his bones — " This 
injunction was exactly fulfilled, and the protestant Bishop of Kil- 
more, the mild friend of mankind, the impartial benefactor and 
unprejudiced protector of his Catholic poor, who almost adored 
him whilst living, was not permitted to deposit his remains within 
the precincts of his own church-yard, though they howled over his 
grave, and rent the air with their savage lamentations. 

n n 2 \ Thus 



276 MEMOIRS OF 

Thus, whilst their carcasses monopolise the consecrated ground, 
his bones and the bones of Bedel make sacred the unblest soil, in 
which they moulder; but whilst I believe and am persuaded, that 
his incorruptible is received into bliss eternal, what concerns it me 
where his corruptible is laid ? The corpse of my lamented mother, 
the instructress of my youth, the friend and charm of my maturer 
years, is deposited by his side. 

Mj T father's patronage at Kilmore was very considerable, and 
this he strictly bestowed upon the clergy of his diocese, promoting the 
curates to the smaller livings, as vacancies occurred, and exacting 
from every man, whom he put into a living, where there was no 
parsonage-house, a solemn promise to build ; but I am sorry to say 
that in no single instance was that promise fulfilled ; which breach 
of faith gave him great concern, and in the cases of some particular 
friends, whom he had promoted in full persuasion of their keeping 
faith with him, afflicted him very sensibly, as I had occasion to 
know and lament. The opportunities he had of benefiting his for- 
tune and family by fines, and the lapse of leases, which might have 
been considerable, he honourably declined to avail himself of, for 
when he had tendered his renewals upon the most moderate terms, 
and these had been delayed or rejected in his days of health, he pe- 
remptorily withstood their offers, when he found his life was has- 
tening to its period, esteeming it according to his high sense of ho- 
nour not perfectly fair to his successor to take what he called the 
packing-penny, and sweep clean before his departure. He left his 
see therefore much more valuable than he found it by this liberal 

and 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 277 

and disinterested conduct, by which it was natural to hope he had 
secured to his executors the good offices and assistance of his suc- 
cessor in recovering the outstanding arrears due to his survivors — 
but in that hope we were shamefully disappointed ; neither these 
arrears, nor even his legal demands for monies expended on im- 
provements, beneficial to the demesne, and regularly certified by 
his diocesan, could be recovered by me for my sister's use, till the 
Lord Primate took the cause in hand, and enforced the sluggish 
and unwilling satisfaction from the bishop, who succeeded him. 

Previous to these unhappy events I had written my fourth co- 
medy of The Choleric Man, and left it with Mr. Garrick for repre- 
sentation. Whilst I was at Bath the rehearsals were going on, and 
the pla} r was brought upon the stage during my absence. It suc- 
ceeded to the utmost of my wishes, but when I perceived that the 
malevolence of the public prints suffered no abatement, and saw 
myself charged with having vented contemptuous and illiberal 
speeches in the theatre, where I could not have been, against pro- 
ductions of my contemporaries, which I had neither heard nor 
seen, galled with such false and cruel aspersions, which, under the 
pressure of my recent losses and misfortunes, fell on me with accu- 
mulated asperity, I was induced to retort upon my defamers, and 
accordingly prefixed to the printed copy of my comedy a Dedica- 
tion to Detraction, in which I observe that " Ill-health and other 
" melancholy attentions, which I need not explain, kept me at a 
" distance from the scene of its decision — " The chief object of 
this dedication was directed to a certain tract then in some degree 

of 



278 MEMOIRS OF 

of circulation, entitle'd An Essay on the Theatre, in which the writer 
professes to draw a comparison between laughing and sentimentalComedy, 
and under the latter description particularly points his observations 
at The Fashionable Lover. There is no occasion for me to speak further 
of this dedication, as it is attached to the comedy, which is yet in 
print, except to observe that I can still repeat with truth what I 
there assert to my imaginary patron, that " I can take my consci- 
" ence to witness I have paid him no sacrifice, devoted no time or 
" study to his service, nor am a man in any respect qualified to re- 
" pay his favours — " 

Garrick wrote the epilogue to this comedy, as he also did that 
to the West-Indian, and Mrs. Abington spoke it. That charming 
actress was now at the height of her fame, and performed the part 
of Laetitia in a style, that gave great support to the representation. 
The two brothers, formed upon the plan of Terence's Adelphi, were 
well cast between Mr. King and Mr. Aickin, and Western personated 
Jack Nightshade with inimitable humour. The chief effect in 
this play is produced by the strong contrast of character between 
Manlove and the Choleric Man, and again with more comic force 
between Charles the courtly gentleman and Jack the rustic booby, 
who at the first meeting with his brother exclaims — " Who wou'd 
v think you and I were whelps of the same breed ? You are as 
" sleek as my lady's lap dog, I am rough as a water-spaniel, be- 
" daggled and be-mired, as if I had come out of the fens with wild 
" fowl; why, I have brought off as much soil upon my boots only 
" as wou'd set up a Norfolk farmer — " 

It 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 279 

It was observed of this comedy that the spirit of the two first 
acts was not kept up through the concluding three, and the general 
sense of the public was said to confirm this remark, therefore I 
presume it is true. It was a successful play in its time, though it 
has not been so often before the public as any of the three, which 
preceded it, and since Weston's decease it has been consigned to 
the shelf. If ever there shall be found an editor of my dramatic 
works as an entire collection, this comedy will stand forward as 
one of the most prominent amongst them. The plot indeed is not 
original, but the characters are humorously contrasted, and there 
is point and spirit in the dialogue. Such as it is, it was the fourth 
produced in four succeeding seasons, and if I acquired any small 
share of credit by those, which preceded it, I did not forfeit it by 
the publication of this. To this comedy I appositely affixed the 

following motto from Plautus 

Jam istac imipientia est 
Sic iram in promptu gerere. 

In the autumn of this year I made a tour in company with my 
friend the Earl of Warwick to the Lakes in Cumberland. He took 
with him Mr. Smith, well known to the public for his elegant de- 
signs after nature in Switzerland, Italy and elsewhere : m} r noble 
friend himself is a master in the art of drawing and designing land- 
scapes in a bold and striking character, of which our tour afforded 
a vast variety. Whilst we passed a few days at Keswick, I hastily 
composed an irregular ode, " which was literally struck out on 
" the spot, and is addressed to the Sun ; for as the season was ad- 

" vancing 



280 MEMOIRS OF 

" vancing towards winter, we had frequent temptations to invoke 
" that luminary, who was never very gracious to our suit, except 
" whilst we were viewing the lake of Keswick and its accompani- 
" ments." 

With this invocation my ode commences 

" Soul of the world, refulgent sun, 
" Oh, take not from my ravish'd sight 
" Those golden beams of living light, 
" Nor, e're thy daily course be run 

" Precipitate the night. 
" Lo, where the ruffian clouds arise, 
" Usurp the abdicated skies, 
" And seize th' aetherial throne : 
" Sullen sad the scene appears, 
" Huge Helvellyn streams with teal's ; 
" Hark ! 'tis giant Skiddaw's groan ; 
" I hear terrific Lawdoor roar ; 
" The sabbath of thy reign is o'er, 
" The anarchy's begun. 
" Father of light, return ; break forth, refulgent Sun !" 

&c. &c. 
This Ode, with one addressed to Doctor James, was published 
and sold by Mr. Robson in New Bond -Street in the year 1776, and 
is I believe to be found in the Tour to the takes. The Ode to 
Doctor Robert James was suggested by the recovery of my second 
son from a dangerous fever, effected under Providence by his cele- 
brated 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 281 

brated powders. I am tempted to insert the following short ex- 
tract, descriptive of the person of Death 

" On his pale steed erect the monarch stands, 
" His dirk and javelin glittering in his hands : 
" This from a distance deals th' ignoble blow, 
" And that dispatches the resisting foe : 
" Whilst all beneath him, as he flies, 
" Dire are the tossings, deep the cries, 
" The landscape darkens and the season dies — " 
&c. &c. 
These Odes I addressed to Mr. George Romney, then lately re- 
turned from pursuing his studies at Rome. 

The next piece that I presented to the stage under the manage- 
ment of Mr. Garrick was Timon of Athens, altered from Shakespear, 
to which I prefixed the following Advertisement, when it was pub- 
lished by Becket — 

" I wish I could have brought this play upon the stage with less 
" violence to its author, and not so much responsibility on my own 
"part. New characters of necessity require some display. Many 
" original passages of the first merit are still retained, and in the 
" contemplation of them my errors I hope will be overlooked or 
" forgiven. In examining the brilliancy of a diamond few people 
" throw away any remarks upon the dulness of the foil — " Barry 
played the part of Timon, and Mrs. Barry that of Evanthe, which 
was engrafted on the original for the purpose of writing up the cha- 
racter of Alcibiades, in which a young actor of the name of Crofts 

o o made 



2m MEMOIRS OF 

made his first appearance on the stage. As the entire part of 
Evanthe, and with very few exceptions the whole of Alcibiades are 
new, the author of this alteration has much to answer for, and 
much it behoved him to make his new matter harmonize with the 
old ; with what degree of success this is done it scarce becomes me 
to say ; the public approbation seemed to sanction the attempt at 
the first production of the play, the neglect, with which the stage 
has passed it over since, disposes us to draw conclusions less in fa- 
vour of its merit. 

As few, who read these memoirs, have ever met, or probably 
ever will meet with this altered play, which is now out of print, I 
trust that such at least will forgive me if I extract a short specimen 
from my own new matter in the second act — 

" Act 2. Scene 3. 
" Lucullus and Lucius. 
Lucul. — " How now, my Lord ; in private ? 
Luc. — " Yes, I thought so, 

" Till an unwelcome intermeddling Lord 
" Stept in and ask'd the question. 
Lucul. — " What, in anger ! 

" By heav'ns I'll gall him ! for he stands before me 
" In the broad sunshine of Lord Timon's bounty, 
" And throws my better merits into shade. (Aside.) 

Luc. — " Now would I kill him if I durst. (Aside.) 

Lucul. — " Methinks 

" You look but coldly. What has crossed your suit ? 

" Alas, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 283 

" Alas, poor Lucius ! but I read your fate 
" In that unkind-one's frown. 

Luc. — " No doubt, my Lord, 

" You, that receive them ever, are well vers'd 
" In the unkind-one's frowns : as the clear stream 
" Reflects your person, so may you espy 
*' In the sure mirror of her scornful brow 
" The clouded picture of your own despair. 

Lucul. — " Come ; you presume too far; talk not thus idly 
" To me, who know you. 

Luc. — " Know me? 

Lucul. — " Aye, who know you. 

" For one, that courses up and down on errands, 

" A stale retainer at Lord Timon's table ; 

" A man grown great by making legs and cringes, 

" By winding round a wanton spendthrift's heart, 

" And gulling him at pleasure — Now do I know you ? 

Luc. — ' ; Gods, must I bear this ? bear it from Lucullus ? 
" I, who first brought thee to Lord Timon's stirrup, 
" Set thee in sight and breath'd into thine ear 
" The breath of hope ? What hadst thou been, ingrateful, 
" But that I took up Jove's imperfect work, 
" Gave thee a shape and made thee into man ? 
Alcibiades to them. 

Alcib. — " What, wrangling, Lords, like hungry curs for crusts ? 
" Away with this unmanly war of words ! 

o o 2 " Pluck 






284 MEMOIRS OF 

" Pluck forth your shining rapiers from their shells, 

" And level boldly at each other's hearts. 

" Hearts did I say ? Your hearts are gone from home, 

" And hid in Timon's coffers — Fie upon it ! 
Luc. — " My Lord Lucullus, I shall find a time. 
Alcib. — " Hah ! find a time ! the brave make time and place. 

" Gods, gods, what things are men ! you'll find a time ? 
A time for what ? — To murder him in's sleep ? 
The man, who wrongs me, at the altar's foot 

" I'll seize, yea, drag him from the shelt'ring aegis 

" Of stern Minerva. 
Luc. — " Aye; 'tis your profession. 
Alcib. — Down on your knees and thank the gods for that, 

" Or woe for Athens, were it left to such 

" As you are to defend. Do ye not hate 

" Each other heartily ? Yet neither dares 

" To bare his trembling falchion to the sun. 

" How tame they dangle on your coward thighs 1 
Lucul. — " We are no soldiers, Sir. 
Alcib. — " No, ye are Lords : 

" A lazy, proud, unprofitable crew : 

" The vermin gender'd from the rank corruption 

" Of a luxurious state — No soldiers, say you ? 
; " And wherefore are ye none ? Have ye not life, 

" Friends, honour, freedom, country to defend ? 
He, that hath these, by nature is a soldier, 

" And, 



« 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 285 

" And, when he wields his sword in their defence, 
" Instinctively fulfils the end he lives for — " 

&c. &c. 
When Moody from the excellence of his acting in the part of 
Major O'Flaherty, became the established performer of Irish cha- 
racters, I wrote in compliance with his wishes another Hibernian 
upon a smaller scale, and composed the entertainment of The Note 
of Hand f or Trip to Newmarket, which was the last piece of my 
writing, which Mr. Garrick produced upon his stage before he dis- 
posed of his property in Drury-Lane theatre, and withdrew from 
business. 

During my residence at Bath I had been greatly pleased with the 
performance of the part of Shylock by Mr. Henderson, and, upon 
conversing with him, found that his wishes strongly pointed to an 
engagement, if that could be obtained, at Drury-Lane, then under 
the direction of Mr. Garrick. When I had seen him in different 
characters, and became confirmed in my opinion of his merit, I 
warmly recommended him to Mr. Garrick, and was empowered to 
contract for his engagement upon terms, that to my judgment, and 
that of other intermediate friends, appeared to be extremely rea- 
sonable. At first I conceived the negociation as good as concluded, 
but some reports, that rather clashed with mine, rendered Mr. 
Garrick cool in the business, and disposed to consult other opinions 
as to Mr. Henderson's abilities; and amongst these he seemed 
greatly to depend upon his brother George's judgment, whose re- 
port was by no means of the same sanguine complexion with mine. 

Poor 



286 MEMOIRS OF 

Poor George had come to Bath in a lamentable state of health, and 
must have seen Henderson with distempered eyes to err so egre- 
giously as he did in his account of him. It proved however in the 
upshot decisive against my advice, and after a languishing, nego- 
ciation, which got at length into other hands than mine, Garrick 
made the transfer of his property in the theatre without the name 
of Henderson upon the roll of his performers. Truth obliges me to 
say that the negociation in all its parts and passages was not credi- 
table to Mr. Garrick, and left impressions on the mind of Hender- 
son, that time did not spcedil} T wear out. He had wit, infinite plea- 
santry and inimitable powers of mimickry, which he felt himself 
privileged to employ, and employed only too successfully. The 
season of the winter theatres passed over, and when the Haymarket 
house opened, Henderson came from Bath with all the powers of 
his genius on the alert, and upon the summer stage fully justified 
every thing that I and others had said of him through the winter, 
and established himself completely in the public favour. A great 
resort of men of talents now flocked around him ; the town consi- 
dered him as a man injuriously rejected, and though, when they 
imputed it to envy I am sure they were mistaken, yet when Garrick 
found that by lending his ear to foolish opinions, and quibbling 
about terms, he had missed the credit of engaging the best actor of 
the time, himself excepted, it is not to be wondered at if the praise, 
bestowed on Henderson's performances, was not the most agreeable 
topic, that could be chosen for his entertainment. He could not 
indeed always avoid hearing these applauses, but he did not hold 

himsel f 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 287 

himself obliged to seeond them, and when curiosity drew him to 
the summer theatre to see Henderson in the part of Shylock, he 
said nothing in his dispraise, but he discovered great merit in 
Tubal, which of course had been the cast of some second-rate per- 
former. 

Henderson in the mean time was transferred from the Hay- 
market theatre to Drury-Lane, under the direction of Mr. Sheridan, 
where I brought out my tragedy of The Battle of Hastings, in which 
he played the part of Edgar Atheling, not indeed with the happiest 
effect, for he did not possess the graces of person or deportment, 
and as that character demanded both, an actor might have been 
found, who with inferior abilities would have been a fitter repre- 
sentative of it. As for the play itself, it was published and is to be 
found in more collections than one ; its readers will probably be of 
opinion, that it is better written than planned; a judgment, to 
which I shall most readily submit, not only in this instance but in 
several others. 

About this time died the earl of Halifax. He had filled the 
high stations of First Lord of Trade and Plantations, Lord Lieute- 
nant of Ireland, Principal Secretary of State, First Lord of the 
Admiralty, Lord Lieutenant of the county of Northampton and 
Knight of the Garter. He had no son, and his title is extinct. 
His fine mansion and estate of Stansted, left to him by Mr. Lum- 
ley, was sold after his decease. I saw him in his last illness, when 
his constitution was an absolute wreck : I was subpcena'd to give 
evidence on this point before the Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, 

and 



288 MEMOIRS OF 

and according to my conscience deposed what was my opinion of 
his hopeless state ; his physician Sir Noah Thomas, whose profes- 
sional judgment had justly more authority and influence than mine, 
by his deposition superseded mine, and the death of his patient 
very shortly after contradicted his. I never knew that man, whose 
life, if circumstantially detailed, would furnish a more striking 
moral and a more tragical catastrophe. Nature endowed him libe- 
rally with her gifts, Fortune showered her favours profusely upon 
him, Providence repeatedly held forth the most extraordinary 
vouch-safements — What a mournful retrospection ! I am not bound 
to dwell upon it. I turn from it with horror. 

A brighter scene now meets me, for whilst I was yet a subaltern 
in the Board of Trade, uncomfortably executing the office of clerk 
of the reports, by the accession of Lord George Germain to the 
seals for the colonial department I had a new principal to look up 
to. I had never been in a room with him in my life, except during 
his trial at the Horse-Guards for the affair of Minden, which I at- 
tended through the whole of its progress, and regularly reported 
what occurred to Mr. Dodington, who was then out of town ; some 
of his letters I preserved, but of my own, according to custom, I 
took no copies. When Lord George had taken the seals, I asked 
my friend Colonel James Cunningham to take me with him to Pail- 
Mall, which he did, and the ceremony of paying my respects was 
soon dismissed. I confess I thought my new chief was quite as cold 
in his manner as a minister need be, and rather more so than my 
intermediate friend had given me reason to expect. I was now liv- 
ing 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. WJ 

ing in great intimacy with the Duke of Dorset, and asked him to do 
me that grace with his uncle, which the honour of being acknow- 
ledged by him as his friend would naturally have obtained for me. 
This I am confident he would readily have done but for reasons, 
which precluded all desire on my part to say another word upon the 
business. I was therefore left to make my own way with a perfect 
stranger, whilst I was in actual negociation with Mr. Pownall for 
the secretaryship, and had understood Lord Clare to be friendly to 
our treaty in the very moment, when he ceased to be our first lord, 
and the power of accommodating us in our wishes was shifted from 
his hands into those of Lord George. I considered it therefore as 
an opportunity gone by, and entertained no further hopes of suc- 
ceeding. A very short time sufficed to confirm the idea I had enter- 
tained of Lord George's character for decision and dispatch in bu- 
siness : there w r as at once an end to all our circumlocutory reports 
and inefficient forms, that had only impeded business, and substi- 
tuted ambiguity for precision: there was (as William Gerard Ha- 
milton, speaking of Lord George, truly observed to me) no trash in 
his mind ; he studied no choice phrases, no superfluous words, nor 
ever suffered the clearness of his conceptions to be clouded by the 
obscurity of his expressions, for these were the simplest and most 
unequivocal that could be made use of for explaining his opinions, 
or dictating his instructions. In the meanwhile he was so momen- 
tarily punctual to his time, so religiously observant of his engage- 
ments, that we, who served under him in office, felt the sweets of 
the exchange we had so lately made in the person of our chief. 

p p I had 



290 MEMOIRS OF 

I had now no other prospect but that of serving in my subordi- 
nate situation under an easy master with security and comfort, for 
as I was not flattered with the show of any notices from him but 
such as I might reasonably expect, I built no hopes upon his fa- 
vour, nor allowed myself to think I was in any train of succeeding 
in my treaty with our secretary for his office ; and as I had reason 
to believe he was equally happy with myself in serving under such 
a principal, I took for granted he would move no further in the bu- 
siness. 

One day, as Lord George was leaving the office, he stopt me 
on the outside of the door, at the head of the stairs, and invited me 
to pass some days with him and his family at Stoneland near Tun- 
bridge Wells. It was on my part so unexpected, that I doubted if 
I had rightly understood him, as he had spoken in a low and sub- 
mitted voice, as his manner was, and I consulted his confidential 
secretary Mr. Doyley, whether he would advise me to the journey. 
He told me that he knew the house was filled from top to bottom 
w r ith a large party, that he was sure there would be no room for me, 
and dissuaded me from the undertaking. I did not quite follow his 
advice by neglecting to present myself, but I resolved to secure my 
retreat to Tunbridge Wells, and kept my chaise in waiting to make 
good my quarters. When I arrived at Stoneland I was met at the 
door by Lord George, who soon discovered the precaution I had 
taken, and himself conducting me to my bed-chamber, told me it 
had been reserved for me, and ever after would be set apart as mine, 
where he hoped I would consent to find myself at home. This was 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 29 J 

the man I had esteemed so cold, and thus was I at once introduced 
to the commencement of a friendship, which day by day improved, 
and which no one word or action of his life to come ever for an in- 
stant interrupted or diminished. 

Shortly after this it came to his knowledge that there had been 
a treaty between Mr. Pownall and me for his resignation of the place 
of Secretary, and he asked me what had passed ; I told him how it 
stood, and what the conditions were, that my superior in office ex- 
pected for the accommodation. I had not yet mentioned this to 
him, and probably never should. He said he would take it into his 
own hands, and in a few days signified the king's pleasure that Mr. 
Pownall's resignation was accepted, and that I should succeed him 
as Secretary in clear and full enjoyment of the place, without any 
compensation whatsoever. Thus was I, beyond all hope and with- 
out a word said to me, that could lead me to expect a favour of 
that sort, promoted by surprise to a very advantageous and desi- 
rable situation. I came to my office at the hour appointed, not 
dreaming of such an event, and took my seat at the adjoining table, 
when, Mr. Pownall being called out of the room, Lord George 
turned round to me and bade me take his chair at the bottom of the 
table, announcing to the Board his majesty's commands, as above 
recited, with a positive prohibition of all stipulations. When I had 
endeavoured to express myself as properly on the occasion, as my 
agitated state of spirits would allow of, I remember Lord George made 
answer, " That if I was as well pleased upon receiving his majesty's 
" commands, as he was in being the bearer of them, I was indeed 

p p 2 " very 



292 MEMOIRS OF 

" very happy." — If I served him truly, honestly and ardently ever 
after, till I followed him to the grave, where is my merit ? How 
could I do otherwise ? 

The conflict in America was now raging at its height ; that was 
a business out of my office to be concerned in, and I willingly pass 
it over ; but it was in my way to know the effects it had upon the 
anxious spirit of my friend, and very much it was both my wish and 
my endeavour by every means in my capacity to be helpful at those 
hours, which were necessary for his relaxation, and take to my 
share as many of those burthensome and vexatious concerns, as 
without intrusion upon other people's offices I could relieve him 
from. All that I could I did, and as I was daily with him, and 
never out of call, I reflect with comfort, that there were occasions 
when my zeal was not unprofitably exerted for his alleviation and 
repose. I might say more, for those were trying and unquiet 
times. It is not a very safe or enviable predicament to be marked 
out for a known attachment to an unpopular character, and be con- 
tinually under arms to turn out and encounter the prejudices of 
mankind. There is a middle kind of way, which some men can hit 
off, between doing all and doing nothing, which saves appearances 
and satisfies easy consciences ; but some consciences are not so 
easily satisfied. 

I had now four sons at Westminster-school boarding at one 
house, and my two daughters coming into the world, so that the 
accession to my circumstances, which my promotion in office gave 
me, put me greatly at my ease, and enabled me to press their edu- 
cation 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 293 

cation with advantage. My eldest son Richard went through West- 
minster with the reputation of an excellent school-scholar, and I 
admitted him of Trinity College, but in one of his vacations having 
prevailed with me to let him volunteer a cruize with Sir Charles 
Hardy, then commander of the home fleet, the rage of service seized 
him, and by his importunity I may say in the words of Polonius he 
wrung from me my slow leave to let him enter himself an ensign in the 
first regiment of foot-guards. This at once gave fire to the train, 
and the three remaining heroes breathed nothing but war : my se- 
cond boy Ceorge took to the sea, and sailed for America ; my third 
Charles enrolled himself an ensign in the tenth, and my youngest 
William disposed of himself as my second had done, and also took 
his departure for America under the command of the late Sir Richard 
Hughes. 

I had been dispossessed of my delightful residence at Tyring- 
ham, near to which Mr. Praed, the present possessor, has now 
built a splendid mansion, and I had taken a house at Tetworth in 
Bedfordshire to be near my kind and ever honoured friend Lady 
Frances Burgoyne, sister to Lord Halifax. Here I passed the sum- 
mer recesses, and in one of these I wrote the Opera of Calypso, for 
the purpose of introducing to the public the compositions of Mr. 
Butler, then a young man, newly returned from Italy, where he 
had studied under Piccini, and given early proofs of his genius. 
He passed the summer with me at Tetworth, and there he wrote 
the music for Calypso in the style of a serious opera. Calypso 
was brought out at Covent Garden, but that theatre was not by 

any 



294 MEMOIRS OF 

any means possessed of such a strength of vocal performers, as 
have of late years belonged to it. Mrs. Kennedy in the part of 
Telemachus, and Leoni in that of Proteus, were neither of them 
very eminentty qualified to grace the action of an opera, yet as that 
was a consideration subordinate to the music, it was to them that 
Mr. Butler addressed his chief attention, and looked up for his sup- 
port. I believe I may venture to say that more beautiful and ori- 
ginal compositions were never presented to the English stage by a 
native master, though I am not unmindful of the fame of Artaxerxes ; 
but Calypso, supported only by Leoni and Mrs. Kennedy, did not 
meet success proportioned to its merit, and I should humbly con- 
ceive upon the same stage, which has since been so powerfully 
mounted by Braham, Incledon and Storace, it might have been re- 
vived with brilliant effect. Why Mr. Butler did not publish his 
music, or a selection at least of those airs, which were most applaud- 
ed, I cannot tell ; but so it was, and the score now remains in the 
depot of Covent Garden, whilst a few only of the songs, and those 
in manuscript, are in the possession of my second daughter Sophia, 
whom he instructed in singing, and with the aid of great natural 
talents on her part, accomplished .her very highly. Calypso as a 
drama has been published, therefore of my share in it as an opera 
I need not say much ; it is before the reader, but I confess I lament 
that music, which I conceive to be so exquisitely beautiful, should 
be buried in oblivion. Mr. Butler has been long since settled at 
Edinburgh as a teacher and writer of music, and is well known 
to the professors and admirers of that art. 

That 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 295 

That I may not again recur to my dramatic connexions with this 
ingenious composer, I will here observe that in the following season 
I wrote a comic opera, which I entitled The Widow of Delphi, or 
The Descent of the Deities, the songs of which he set to music. Mr. 
Butler published a selection of songs, &c. from this opera, but as I 
was going out of England I did not send my copy to the press, and 
having now had it many years in my hands, by the frequent revi- 
sions and corrections, which I have had opportunities of giving to 
this manuscript, I am encouraged to believe that if I, or any after 
me, shall send it into the world, this drama will be considered as one 
of my most classical and creditable productions. 

Having adverted to the happiness and honour, which I enjoyed 
in the friendship of Lady Frances Burgoyne, it occurs to me to re- 
late the part, which at her request I undertook, in the behalf of the 
unfortunate Robert Perreau, when under trial for his life. The de- 
fence, which he read at the bar, was to a word drawn up by me, 
under the revision of his counsel Mr. Dunning, who did not change 
a syllable. I dined with Garrick on the very day when Robert Per- 
reau had delivered it in court ; there was a large company, and he 
was expatiating upon the effect of it, for he had been present; he 
even detailed the heads of it with considerable accuracy, and was 
so rapturous in his praises of it, that he predicted confidently, 
though not truly, that the man, who drew up that defence, had 
saved the prisoner's life, and what would he not give to know who 
it was ? I confess my vanity was strongly moved to tell him; but 
he shortly after found it out, and perhaps repented of his hyper- 
boles, 



296 MEMOIRS OF 

boles, for it was not good policy in him to over-praise a writer for 
the stage. When poor Dodd fell under the like misfortune, he ap- 
plied to me in the first instance for the like good offices, but as 
soon as I understood that application had been made to Doctor 
Johnson, and that he was about to be taken under his shield, I did 
what every other friend to the unhappy would have done, consigned 
him to the stronger advocate, convinced that if the powers of John- 
son could not move mercy to reach his lamentable case, there was 
no further hope in man; his penitence alone could save him, 

I had known Sir George Brydges Rodney in early life, and 
whilst he was residing in France, pending the uneasy state of his 
affairs at home, had spared no pains to serve his interest and pave 
the way for his return to his own country, where I was not without 
hopes by the recommendation of Lord George Germain to procure 
him an employment worthy of his talents and high station in the 
navy. I drew up from his minutes a memorial of his services, and 
petitioned for employ : he came home at the risque of his liberty 
to refute some malicious imputations, that had been glanced at his 
character; this he effectually and honourably accomplished, and I 
was furnished with testimonials very creditable to him as an officer; 
his situation in the meanwhile was very uncomfortable and his exer- 
tions circumscribed, yet in this pressure of his affairs, to mark his 
readiness and zeal for service, he addressed a letter to the king, 
tendering himself to serve as volunteer under an admiral, then go- 
ing out, who, if I do not mistake, was his junior on the list. In 
this forlorn unfriended state, with nothing but exclusion and de- 

spiar 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 297 

spair before his eyes, when not a ray of hope beamed upon him from 
the admiralty, and he dared not set a foot beyond the limits of his 
privilege, I had the happy fortune to put in train that statement of 
his claim for service and employ, which through the immediate ap- 
plication of Lord George,, taking all the responsibility on himself, 
obtained for that adventurous and gallant admiral the command of 
that squadron, which on its passage to the West Indies made cap- 
ture of the Spanish fleet fitted out for the Caraccas. The degree 
of gratification, which I then experienced, is not easily to be de- 
scribed. It was not only that of a triumph gained, but of a terror 
dismissed, for the West India merchants had been alarmed and 
clamoured against the appointment so generally and so decidedly 
as to occasion no small uneasiness to my friend and patron, and 
drew from him something, that resembled a remonstrance for the 
risque 1 had exposed him to. But in the brilliancy of this exploit 
all was done away, and past alarms were onty recollected to con- 
trast the joy which this success diffused. 

Here I hope to be forgiven if I record an answer of Lord George 
Germain's to an officious gentleman, who upon some reference to 
me in his concerns expressed himself with surprise at the degree of 
influence which I appeared to have — " You are very right," replied 
my friend, " that gentleman has a great deal to do with me and my 
" affairs, and if you can find any other to take his place as disinte- 
'* restedly attached to me and as capable of serving me, I am con- 
" fident he will hold himself very highly obliged to you for reliev- 
" ing him from a burden, that brings him neither profit nor advan- 

Q Q " tage, 



298 MEMOIRS OF 

" tage, and only subjects him to such remarks, as you have now 
" been making — ". 

It happened to me to be present, and sitting next to Admiral 
Rodney at table, when the thought seemed first to occur to him of 
breaking the French line by passing through it in the heat of the 
action. It was at Lord George Germain's house at Stoneland after 
dinner, when having asked a number of questions about the ma- 
noeuvring of columns, and the effect of charging with them on a 
line of infantry, he proceeded to arrange a parcel of cherry stones, 
which he had collected from the table, and forming them as two 
fleets drawn up in line and opposed to each other, he at once ar- 
rested our attention, which had not been very generally engaged 
by his preparatory enquiries, by declaring he was determined so to 
pierce the enemy's line of battle, (arranging his manoeuvre at the 
same time on the table) if ever it was his fortune to bring them into 
action. I dare say this passed with some as mere rhapsody, and all 
seemed to regard it as a very perilous and doubtful experiment, but 
landsmen's doubts and difficulties made no impression on the ad- 
miral, who having seized the idea held it fast, and in his eager 
animated way went on manoeuvring his cherry stones, and throwing 
his enemy's representatives into such utter confusion, that already 
possessed of that victory in imagination, which in reality he lived 
to gain, he concluded his process by swearing he would lay the 
French admiral's flag at his sovereign's feet; a promise which he 
actually pledged to his majesty in his closet, and faithfully and glo- 
riously performed. 

He 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 299 

He was a singular and extraordinary man ; there were some pro- 
minent and striking eccentricities about him, which on a first ac- 
quaintance might dismiss a cursory observer with inadequate and 
false impressions of his real character ; for he would very commonly 
indulge himself in a loose and heedless style of talking, which for a 
time might intercept and screen from observation the sound good 
sense that he possessed, and the strength and dignity of mind, that 
were natural to him. Neither ought it to be forgotten that the sea 
was his element, and it was there, and not on land, that the stan- 
dard ought to be planted by which his merits should be measured. 
We are apt to set that man down as vain-glorious and unwise, who 
fights battles over the table, and in the ardour of his conversation 
though amongst enviers and enemies, keeps no watch upon his 
words, confiding in their candour and believing them his friends. 
Such a man was Admiral Lord Rodney, whom history will record 
amongst the foremost of our naval heroes, and whoever doubts his 
courage might as well dispute against the light of the sun at noon- 
day. 

That he carried this projected manoeuvre into operation, and 
that the effect of it was successfully decisive all the world knows. 
My friend Sir Charles Douglas, captain of the fleet, confessed to 
me that he himself had been adverse to the experiment, and in dis- 
cussing it with the admiral had stated his objections ; to these he 
got no other answer but that " his counsel was not called for ; 
" he required obedience only, he did not want advice — " Sir 
Charles also told me that whilst the project was in operation, (the 

q q 2 battle 



300 MEMOIRS OF 

battle then raging) his own attention being occupied bj the gallant 
defence made by the French Glorieux against the ships that were 
pouring their fire into her, upon his crying out — " Behold, Sir 
" George, the Greeks and Trojans contending for the body of Pa- 
" troclus ! — " The admiral, then pacing the quarter deck in great 
agitation pending the experiment of his manoeuvre, (which in the 
instance of one ship had unavoidably miscarried) peevishly exclaim- 
ed — " Damn the Greeks and damn the Trojans ; I have other things 
" to think of — " When in a few minutes after, his supporting ship 
having led through the French line in a gallant style, turning with 
a smile of joy to Sir Charles Douglas, he cried out — " Now my dear 
" friend, I am at the service of your Greeks and Trojans, and the 
" whole of Homer's Iliad, or as much of it as you please, for the 
" enemy is in confusion, and our victory is secure — " This anec- 
dote, correctly as I relate it, I had from that gallant officer, un- 
timely lost to his country, whose candour scorned to rob his admiral 
of one leaf of his laurels, and who, disclaiming all share in the 
manoeuvre, nay confessing he had objected to it, did in the most 
pointed and decided terms again and again repeat his honourable 
attestations of the courage and conduct of his commanding officer 
on that memorable day. 

In a short time after, when, upon a change of the administra- 
tion, this victorious admiral was superseded and called home, he 
confirmed by his practice that maxim, which he took every oppor- 
tunity to inculcate, (and a very wise one and well worthy of being 
recorded it is,) viz — " That our naval officers have nothing to do 

" with 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 301 

" with parties and politics, being simply bound to carry their in- 
" structions into execution, to the best of their abilities, without 
" deliberating about men and measures, which forms no part of 
" their duty, and for which they are in no degree responsible — ". 
It was to this transaction I alluded in the following lines, which 
I wrote and inclosed to Lord Mansfield about this time. I had the 
honour and happiness of enjoying his society frequently, but the im- 
mediate reason for my addressing him in this style has no connexion 

with the subject here referred to 

To the Earl of Mansfield. 
" Shall merit find no shelter but the grave, 
" And envy still pursue the wise and brave ? 
" Sticks the leech close to life, and only drops 
" When its food fails and the heart's current stops ? 
" Though sculptur'd laurels grace the hero's bust, 
" And tears are mingled with the poet's dust, 
" Review their sad memorials, you will find 
" This fell by faction, that in misery pin'd. 

" When France and Spain the subject ocean swept, 
" Whilst Briton's tame inglorious lion slept, 
" Or lashing up his courage now and then, 
" Turn'd out and growl'd, and then turn'd in again, 
" Rodney in that ill-omen'd hour arose, 
" Crush'd his own first and next his country's foes ; 
" Though all that fate allow'd was nobly won, 
" Envy could squint at something still undone ; 

" Injurious 



302 MEMOIRS OF 

" Injurious faction stript him of command, 

" And snatch'd the helm from his victorious hand, 

" Summon'd the nation's brave defender home, 

" Prejudg'd his cause and warn'd him to his doom; 

" Whilst hydra-headed malice open'd wide 

" Her thousand mouths, and bay'd him till he died. 

" The poet's cause comes next — and you my Lord, 
" The Muse's friend, will take a poet's word ; 
" Trust me our province is replete with pain , 
" They say we're irritable, envious, vain : 
" They say — and Time has varnish'd o'er the lie 
" Till it assumes Truth's venerable dye — 
" That wits, like falcons soaring for their prey, 
" Pounce every wing that flutters in their way, 
" Plunder each rival songster's tuneful breast 
" To deck with others plumes their own dear nest ; 
" They say — but 'tis an office I disclaim 
" To brush their cobwebs from the roll of fame, 
" There let the spider hang and work his worst, 
" And spin his flimsy venom till he burst ; 
" Reptiles beneath the holiest shrine may dwell, 
" And toads engender in the purest well. 

" Genius must pay its tax like other wares 
" According to the value which it bears ; 
" On sterling worth detraction's stamp is laid, 
" As gold before 'tis current is assayed. 

" Fame 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 303 



a 



Fame is a debt time present never pays, 
" But leaves it on the score to future days ; 
" And why is restitution thus deferr'd 
" Of long arrears from year to year incurr'd ? 
" Why to posterity this labour given 
" To search out frauds and set defaulters even ? 
" If our sons hear our praise 'tis well, and yet 
" Praise in the father's ear had sounded sweet. 

" Still there is one exception we must own, 
" Whom all conspire to praise, and one alone ; 
" One on whose living brow we plant the wreath, 
" And almost deify on this side death : 
" He in the plaudits of the present age 
" Already reads his own historic page, 
" And, though preeminence is under heav'n 
" The last of crimes by man to be forgiv'n, 
" Justice her own vice-gerent will defend, 
" The orphan's father and the widow's friend ; 
" Truth, virtue, genius mingle beams so bright, 
" Envy is dazzl'd with excess of light : 
" Detraction's tongue scarce stammers out a fault, 
" And faction blushes for its own assault. 
" His is the happy gift, the nameless grace, 
" That shapes and fits the man to every place, 
" The gay companion at the social board, 
" The guide of councils, or the senate's lord, 



Now 



304 MEMOIRS OF 

" Now regulates the law's discordant strife, 

" Now balances the scale of death or life, 

" Sees guilt engendering in the human heart, 

" And strips from falsehood's face the mask of art. 

" Whether, assembled with the wise and great, 

" He stands the pride and pillar of the state, 

" With well-weigh'd argument distinct and clear 

" Confirms the judgment and delights the ear, 

" Or in the festive circle deigns to sit 

" Attempering wisdom with the charms of wit — 

" Blest talent, form'd to profit and to please, 

" To cloathe Instruction in the garb of Ease, 

" Sublime to rise, or graceful to descend, 

" Now save an empire and now cheer a friend. 

" More I could add, but you perhaps complain, 
" And call it mere creation of the brain ; 
" Poets you say will flatter — true, they will ; 
" But I nor inclination have nor skill — 
" Where is your model, you will ask me, where ? 
" Search your own breast, my Lord, you'll find it there.*' 
It is in this period of my life's history, that by accepting a com- 
mission, which took me into Spain, I was subjected to events, that 
have very strongly contrasted and changed the complexion of my 
latter days from that of the preceding ones. 

I will relate no other circumstances of this negociation than I 
am in honour and strict conscience warranted to make public. For 

more 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 305 

more than twenty years I have been silent, making no appeals at 
any time but to my official employers, who were pledged to do me 
justice. What I gained by those appeals, and how far that justice 
was administered to me, will appear from the detail, which I am now 
about to give ; and though I hope to render this narrative not un- 
entertaining to my readers, yet I do most faithfully assure them 
that no tittle of the truth shall be sacrificed to description, being 
resolved to give no colour to facts and events, but such as they can 
strictly bear, nor ever knowingly permit a word to stand in these 
pages inconsistent with that veracity, to which I am so solemnly 
engaged. 

In the year 1780, and about the time of Rodney's capture of 
the Caracca fleet, I had opportunities of discovering through a se- 
cret channel of intelligence many things passing, and some con- 
certing, between the confidential agents of France and Spain, (par- 
ticularly the latter) resident in this country, and in private corres- 
pondence with the enemies of it. Of these communications I made 
that use, which my duty dictated, and to my judgment seemed 
advisable. By these, in the course of their progress, a prospect 
was opened of a secret negociation with the Minister Florida 
Blanca, to which I was personally committed, and of course could 
not decline the undertaking it. My destination was to repair to 
the neutral port of Lisbon, there to abide whilst the Abbe Hussey, 
chaplain to his Catholic Majesty, proceeded to Aranjuez, and by 
the advice, which he should send mc, I was to be governed in the 
alternative of either going into Spain for the purpose of carrying 

r r my 



306 MEMOIRS OF 

my instructions into execution, or of returning home by the same 
ship, that conveyed me thither, which was ordered to wait my de- 
termination for the space of three weeks, unless dismissed or em- 
ployed by me within that period. 

I was to take my wife and two daughters Elizabeth and Sophia 
with me on the pretence of travelling into Italy upon a passport 
through the Spanish dominions, and having received my instruc- 
tions and letters of accreditation from the Earl of Hillsborough, 
Secretary of State, on the 17th day of April 1780, I took my de- 
parture for Portsmouth, there to embark on board his majesty's 
frigate Milford, which I had particularly asked for, as knowing 
her character to be that of a remarkable swift sailer. On my arri- 
val at Portsmouth I found she had gone out upon a short cruize 
after a French privateer, but was expected every hour. On the 
21st she came in from her cruize, and I delivered to her Captain 
Sir William Burnaby two letters from the Admiralty, one directing 
him to receive me and my family on board, the other to be opened 
when he came off the Start Point. 

This frigate being from long and constant service in a weak and 
leaky state, on which account Sir William had lately brought her 
into port, and undergone a court martial in consequence of it, I 
found him and his officers under some alarm as to the unknown ex- 
tent of my destination, suspecting that I might be bound to the 
West Indies, and justly doubting the sea- worthiness of the ship for 
any distant voyage. On this point I could give them no satisfac- 
tion, but on the day following her arrival, (viz. April the 22d) went 

on 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 307 

on board to assist in adjusting the accommodations for the females 
of my family. 

In consequence of strong and adverse winds we remained at 
Spithead till the 28th, when at 8 o'clock in the morning we weighed 
anchor with the wind at south, and brought to at Cowes. Here I 
fixed three double-headed shot to the box, that contained my pa- 
pers and instructions, and the wind still hanging in the south-west, 
foul and unfavourable, it was not till the 2d of May, when upon 
its veering to the north-east we took our departure in the forenoon 
from Cowes, and upon its dying away anchored in mid-channel for 
the night in 20 fathom water, Needle-rocks S. W. by W. Yarmouth 
S. E. by S. 

Being off the Start-point on the 3d instant Sir William Burnaby 
opened his orders, and with great satisfaction found his destination 
to be to Lisbon; we saw a large fleet to westward at the Start-point, 
which proved to be the Quebec trade outward-bound under convoy. 
On the 6th having passed the Land's-end, we found the fore-mast 
sprung below the trussel trees, and by the next day the carpenter 
had moulded a fish on it, when the gale having freshened with rain 
and squalls, we struck top-gallants, handed the fore-sail and hove 
to under the main-sail ; on the ninth the gale increased, and hav- 
ing reefed and furled the main-sail, we laid to under the main- 
stay-sail and mizen-stay-sail : Lat. 49° 4' ; Long. 1°. 45'. Land's- 
end. 

Our situation now became very uncomfortable, and our safety 
suspicious, for the sea was truly mountainous, and broke over our 

it r 2 low 



308 MEMOIRS OF 

low and leaky frigate in a tremendous style, which in the mean- 
while occasionally received such hard and heavy shocks, as caused 
serious apprehensions even in those, to whom dangers were familiar. 
I had in my passages to Ireland been in angry seas and blowing 
weather, but nothing I had seen bore any resemblance to the fury 
of this gale, nor could any thing but the confidence I had reason 
to place in British seamen, and the exertions, which I witnessed on 
their part, have stood between me and absolute despair. The 
dreadful sight and deafening uproar of those tremendous seas, that 
by turns whelmed us under a canopy of water, making darkness at 
mid -day, and rendering every voice inaudible, were as much as my 
nerves could bear, and whilst the ship was quivering and settling, 
as I conceived, upon the point of going down, I thought it high 
time to set out in search of those beloved objects, who had em- 
barked themselves with me, and were as I supposed suffering the 
extreme of terror and alarm. How greatly was I mistaken in the 
calculation of their fortitude ! I found my wife, then far gone with 
child, in her cot within the cabin, the water flowing through it like 
a sluice, so perfectly collected and composed, that I forbore to 
speak of the situation we were in, and did not hint at the purpose, 
which brought me to her ; but she, who knew too well what was 
passing to be deceived as to the motive of my coining to her, said 
to me — " You are alarmed I believe ; so am not I. We are in a 
" British ship of war, manned with British seamen, and, if we are 
" in danger, which I conclude we are, I don't doubt but they know 
" how to carry us through it." Thus divested of my alarm by the 

intrepidity 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 309 

intrepidity of the very person, who had so great a share in causing 
it, I made my way with some difficulty to the ward-room, where 
my daughters had taken shelter, whilst Mr. Lucas the purser was 
serenading them with what would have been a country dance, if 
the ship had not danced so violently out of all time and tune. In 
this moment the Abbe Hussey, who had followed me, upon a sud- 
den pitch of the ship burst head foremost into the ward -room, 
and with the momentum of a gun broken loose from its lashings 
overturned poor Lucas, demolishing his violin, the table, and 
every thing frangible that his colossal figure came in contact 
with. 

Such was our situation on the 9th of May, and when upon the 
morning following the gale moderated we set the mizen and fore- 
top-mast stay-sail, and swaying the top-gallant-mast up, set main- 
sail and fore-sail, working the pumps to keep the ship free, whilst 
the sea ran very lofty with a heavy swell. This was the last time 
the Milford frigate ever went to sea, for by the time we anchored 
in the Tagus her main-deck exhibited sufficient proofs how com- 
pletely she was broken-backed by straining in the gale. 

I will here relate an incident no otherwise interesting or curious 
but as a mere matter of chance, which tends in some degree to show 
the credulity of our seafaring countrymen. I had been in the habit 
of wearing in my pocket a broad silver piece given to me as a keep- 
sake by my son George, who received his death at the siege of 
Charlestown in South Carolina the very day after he had taken com- 
mand of an armed vessel, to which he was appointed. This piece 

had 



310 MEMOIRS OF 

had been beaten out from a dollar by a marine belonging to the 
Milford then on the American station, and presented by him to my 
son then a midshipman serving on board : on this piece the artist 
had engraved the Milford in full sail, and on the reverse my coat 
of arms, and upon my discovering that this same ingenious marine, 
now become a serjeant, was on the same quarter-deck with me, I 
had been talking with him upon the incident, and shewing him that 
I had carefully preserved his present, which to this hour I have 
done, and am now wearing it in my pocket. This man, though a 
brave and orderly soldier, had so completely yielded himself up to 
a kind of religious enthusiasm as to be plunged in the profoundest 
apathy and indifference towards life ; still he exhibited on this oc- 
casion some small show of sensibility at the sight of his own work, 
and the recollection of an amiable youth, now untimely lost. The 
wind was adverse to our course, our ship still labouring in a heavy 
sea, whilst strong and sudden squalls, which every now and then 
annoyed us, together with the incessant labour of the pumps, deni- 
ed our people that repose, which their past toils demanded : in this 
gloomy moment the fancy struck me to make trial of the supersti- 
tion of the man at the helm by laying this silver piece on the face 
of the compass, as a charm to turn the wind a point or two in our 
favour, which I boldly promised it would do. I found my gallant 
shipmate eagerly disposed to confide in the experiment, which he 
put out of all doubt by clinching his belief in it with a deposition 
upon oath, quite sufficient to convince me of his sincerity, and 
something more than necessary for the occasion. Accordingly I 

laid 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 311 

laid my charm upon the glass of the compass with all the solemnity 
I could assume, whilst my friend kept his eyes alternately employ- 
ed upon that and the dog-vane, till in a few minutes with a second 
oath, much more ornamented and embroidered than the former, he 
announced to the conviction of all present a considerable shift of 
wind in our favour. Credulity now began to circulate most rapidly 
through the ship ; even the officers seemed to have caught some 
touches of its influence, and my friend the meditative serjeant raised 
his eyes with some astonishment from his book, where they had 
been riveted to a few dirty pages loose and torn, as it seemed, 
out of Sherlock's volume upon death. My first prediction having 
succeeded so luckily, I boldly promised them a prize in view, and 
whimsical as the incident is, yet it so chanced that in a very short 
time the man at the mast-head sung out two ships bearing north 
standing to the southward ; this happened at one o'clock ; at half- 
an-hour past the sternmost tacked and made sail to the northward ; 
we found our ship gaining fast upon her, and at four hoisted Dutch 
colours; at three quarters after hoisted St. George's ensign, and 
fired a shot at her ; at five she hoisted French colours and fired a 
broadside into us, and at six she struck, and proved to be the Due 
de Coigny private frigate of 28 guns, Mignionet commander, be- 
longing to Granville; this gallant Frenchman had scarcely pro- 
nounced his anathema against the man, that should offer to strike 
his colours, when his head was blown to atoms by one of our can- 
non balls : the prize lost her second captain also and had 50 of her 

men 



312 MEMOIRS OF 

men killed and wounded : we had two seamen and one marine 
killed, and four seamen and one marine wounded. 

This was a new and striking spectacle to a landsman like me, 
and though I am dwelling on an incident which to a naval reader 
may seem trifling, yet as it was my 'good fortune to be present at 
an animating scene, which does not occur to every man, who occa- 
sionally passes the seas in my situation, I presume I am excusable 
for my description of it. 

When I witnessed the dispatch, with which a ship is cleared for 
action, the silence and good order so strictly observed, and the 
commands so distinctly given upon going into action, I was im- 
pressed with the greatest respect for the discipline and precision 
observed on board our ships of war. Such coolness and preparatory 
arrangement seemed to me a security for success and conquest. Our 
spirited purser Mr. Lucas performed better with his musket than his 
violin, and whilst standing by him on the quarter-deck I plainly 
saw him pick off a French officer in a green coat, whom he jocu- 
larly called the parrot, the last of three whom he had dismissed to 
their watery graves. My melancholy friend the engraver had his 
arm shattered by the first fire of the enemy, which he received with 
the most stoical indifference, and would not be persuaded to leave 
the quarter-deck till the action was over, when going down to be 
dressed as my eldest daughter (now Lady Edward Bentinck) was 
coming up from below, he gallantly presented that very arm to as- 
sist her, and when, observing him shrink upon her touching it, 

she 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 313 

she said to him — " Serjeant, I am afraid you are wounded — " he 
calmly replied — " To be sure I am, Madam, else I should not have 
" been so bold to have crossed you on the stairs — " This was a 
strain of chivalry worthy of the days of old, and something more 
than Tom Jones's gallantry to Sophia Western, who only offered 
her his serviceable arm and kept the broken one unemployed. One 
other incident, though of a very different sort, occurred as I was 
handing her along the main-deck from the bread-room, when slip- 
ping in the blood and brains of a poor fellow, who laid dead beside 
his gun, an insensible brat, who was boasting and rejoicing at his 
own escape, cried out — " Have a care, Miss, how you tread. Look 
" at this fellow ; I stood close by him, when he got this knock : the 
" shot went clear over me, and this damn'd fool put his head in the 
" way of it. Was'nt that a droll affair ? — " 

The shifting the prisoners was a task of danger, as the sea ran 
very high and they were beastly drunk. In this our people were 
employed all night: when they had refitted the rigging shot away 
in the action, and hoisted in the boats, we made sail with the prize 
in company. The carpenters were employed in repairing the boats, 
which were stove in shifting the prisoners, of which we took on 
board 155 French and Americans : Lat. 49° &. Long. 1° 45'. 

Our surgeon and his assistants being exhausted with their duty 
on board both ships, my anxiety kept me sleepless through a tur- 
bulent night, and I went about the ship to the wounded men, one 
of whom (James Eaton by name) a quarter-master and one of the 
finest fellows I ever saw, expired as I stood by him without any 

s s external 



314 MEMOIRS OF 

external hurt, having been struck in the side by a splinter. I read 
the burial service over him the next morning, whilst Abbe Hussey 
performed that office for the other two, who were Irish and of his 
communion. 

On the 11th we took the prize in tow; we had fresh breezes with 
dark cloudy weather, and at midnight we wore ship, and in veering 
having broken the hawser we shortened sail for the prize, but soon 
after made signal for her to stand about and go into port, which 
she safely effected. In the course of this day I wrote a song for 
my amusement descriptive of our action, and adapted it to the 

tune of 

Whilst here at Deal we're lying, boys, 
With the noble Commodore — 

Our crew were very musically inclined, and we had some pas- 
sably good singers amongst them, which suggested to me the idea 
of writing this sea song ; we frequently sung it at Lisbon in lusty 
chorus, but their delicacy would not allow them to let it be once 
heard till their prisoners were removed; and this was the answer 
made to me by a common seaman, when I asked why they 
would not sing it during the voyage; an objection, which had 
escaped me, but which I felt the full force of, when stated to me 
by him. 

The song was as follows, and the circumstances, under which 

it was hastily written, must be my apology for inserting it 

" 'Twas 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 315 

" Twas up the wind three leagues or more 

" We spied a lofty sail ; 
" Set your top-gallant sails, my boys, 

" And closely hug the gale. 

" Nine knots the nimble Milford ran, 

" Thus, thus, the master cried ; 
" Hull up we brought the chace in view, 

" And soon were side by side. 

" Dowse your Dutch ensign, up Saint George ! 

" To quarters now all hands ; 
" With lighted match beside his gun 

" Each British hero stands. 

" Give fire, our gaHant captain cries, 

" 'Tis done, the cannons roar; 
" Stand clear, Mounseers, digest these pills, 

" And soon we'll send you more. 

" Our chain-shot whistles in the wind, 

" Our grape descends like hail — 
" Hurrah, my souls ! three cheering shouts, 

" French hearts begin to quail. 

s s 2 " Rak'd 



« 



316 MEMOIRS OF 

" Rak'd fore and aft her shatter'd hull 

" Lets in the briny flood, 
" Her decks are carnaged with the slain, 

" Her scuppers stream with blood. 

" Her French jack shivers in the wind, 

" Its lilies all look pale ; 
" Down it must come, it must come down, 
For Britons will prevail. 



a 



" And see ! "tis done : she strikes, she yields ; 

" Down haughty flag of France : 
" Now board her, boys, and on her staff 

" The English cross advance ! 

" There, there triumphantly it flies, 

" It conquers and it saves — 
" So gaily toss the can about, 

" For Britons rule the waves/' 

During the 12th, 13th and 14th, we had fresh gales and squally, 
till on the night of the latter, being then in Lat. 44° 2'. Long. 3° 16'. 
we had light airs and fair weather, when descrying a frigate under 
English colours to the southward, standing to the northward, we 
cleared ship for action, but soon after lost sight of her. The next 

day, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 317 

day, viz. the 15th, we saw a fleet of the enemy to the southward 
standing to the westward, forty-five in number, of which were eight 
sail of the line and three or four frigates. They proved to be the 
French squadron under the command of Tournay, and having 
brought to on the starboard tack dispatched a line of battle ship in 
chace of us ; coming down in a slanting course she appeared at first 
to gain upon us, till at half-past eight in the evening, (our rate 
being then better than at twelve knots) she left off chace, having 
given us her lower guns, whilst the prisoners, expecting us to be 
captured, became so unruly, that our men were obliged to drive 
them down with the hand-spikes. 

On the l6th we brought to and took a Portuguese pilot on 
board, passed the Burlings, and the next day at six in the evening 
anchored with the best bower in eight fathom water, Belem Castle 
N. E. Abbe Hussey and I with the second lieutenant landed at 
the castle, and at eight at night we obtained pratique. We found 
riding here his majesty's ship Romney, Captain Home, with the 
Cormorant sloop, Captain John Payne, under the command of 
Commodore Johnstone. 

One of my first employments was to purchase a large stock of 
oranges for the refreshment of the ship's company, especially the 
wounded, and of these my friend the serjeant condescended to 
partake, though he had been so extremely occupied with his medi- 
tations upon death, as hardly to be persuaded to let his arm be 
dressed, answering all the kind enquiries of his comrades in the 
most sullen, and oftentimes abusive terms — " They were wicked 

" wretches 



318 MEMOIRS OF 

" wretches and deserved damnation for presuming to condole with 
" him. It was God's good pleasure to exercise his spirit with pain, 
" and he had supreme satisfaction in bearing it. What business 
" was it of their's to be troubling him with their impertinent enqui- 
" ries ?" — This was in the style of his civilest replies : to some his 
answers were very short and extremely gross. 

The day after our arrival we weighed and dropt farther up the 
river ; at night we discharged the prisoners, and the commodore 
visited us in his barge. Mr. Hussey prepared for his journey into 
Spain, and I provided apartments for my family at Mrs. Duer's 
hotel at Buenos Ayres. The next day the commodore entertained 
us at Belem, and the day ensuing he, with Captains Home and 
Payne, dined with us on board. 

My orders were to wait at Lisbon till Mr. Hussey wrote to me 
from Aranjeuz, and according to the tenor of his report I was to 
use mj discretion as to proceeding onwards, or returning home ; 
and this being a point decisive as to my credit or discredit in the 
management of the business I was entrusted with, I was most urgent 
and precise with Mr. Hussey in conjuring him to be extremely 
careful and correct in his report, by which I was to guide myself, 
and this he solemnly promised me that he would observe. On the 
19th and 20th I prepared my dispatches, and on the 21st deli- 
vered them to the pacquet master, who took his departure that very 
day. 

In the mean time I understood from Mr. Hussey, that in apply- 
ing to the Spanish ambassador Count Fernan Nunez for his pass- 
port, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 319 

port, he had committed himself to a conversation, from which he 

drew very promising expectations ; of this I informed my proper 

minister Lord Hillsborough, as will appear by the following extract 

of my letter dated the 19th of May 1780. 

" My Lord, 

" When Mr. Hussey waited on Count Fernan Nunez 

" yesterday for his passport, he would have made his commission 

" for the exchange of prisoners the pretence for his journey into 

" Spain, but the ambassador gave him plainly to understand he 

" was confidential with Count Florida Blanca in the business upon 

" which we are come. This being the case, Mr. Hussey thought it 

" by no means necessary to decline a conversation with the ambas- 

" sador under proper reserve. He was soon told that his arrival was 

" anxiously expected at Aranjuez. No expression of good will to 

" him, to me, and to the commission I am entrusted with was 

" omitted. It was proposed by the ambassador to pay me the 

" honour of a visit, if acceptable, in any way I liked best; but this 

" Mr. Hussey without referring to me very properly and readily 

" prevented. 

" He entered into' many pertinent enquiries as to the state of the 

" ministry and the manner, in which Lord North had been pressed 

" in the House of Commons ; he would have stirred the question of 

" an accommodation with France, but was plainly answered by 

" Mr. Hussey that he had no one word to say upon that subject; 

" the channel was open, he observed, but ours was not that clian- 
m ne i_* * 

" The 



320 MEMOIRS OF 

" The conversation then closed with such assurances of a s*fn- 
" cere pacific disposition on the part of Spain, that if Count Fernan 
" Nunez reports fairly and is not imposed on, our business seems to 
° be in an auspicious train — * * *" 

My gratitude to Sir William Burnaby and his officers induced 
me to address the following letter and request to Lord Hillsbo- 
rough, which I made separate, and sent under cover of the same 
dispatch. 

" To the Earl of Hillsborough." 

" May the 20th 1780. 

" My Lord, " Milford frigate off Belem. 

" I cannot let this opportunity go by without expressing 

" to your Lordship, and through you to Lord Sandwich, my most 

" thankful acknowledgments for indulging my Avishes by putting 

" me on board the Milford under the care and command of Sir 

" William Burnaby, whose unremitted kindness and attention to 

" me and my family, I can neither duly relate nor repay. Through- 

" out a long and an eventful passage, whether we were struggling 

" with a gale, or clearing ship for action, both he and his officers 

" uniformly conducted themselves with that harmony, temper and 

" precision, as seemed to put them in assured possession of success; 

" the men themselves have been so long attached to their officers, 

" and all of them to the ship itself, that the severest duty is here 

" directed without an oath, and obeyed without a murmur. — 

" Though we have been encumbered with such a crowd of prisoners, 

" many of whom seemed to possess the spirit of mutiny in full 

" force, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 321 

" force, our discipline has kept all in perfect quiet, and such hu- 
" mane attention has been paid to their health, that not a single 
" prisoner has sickened or complained. 

" I take the liberty of intruding upon your lordship with these 
" particulars to introduce a suit to you, which I have most anxiously 
" at heart, and in which I am joined with equal anxiety by my 
" friend Mr. Hussey : it is, my lord, to beseech you to promote the 
" application made by Sir William Burnaby to Lord Sandwich in 
" behalf of his first lieutenant Mr. William Grosvenor to be made 
" master and commander; an officer of ten years standing, well known 
" in the navy and distinguished for activity, sobriety and profes- 
" sional skill and ability : he went round the world with Admiral 
" Byron, and is highly respected by him ; he has been in this ship 
" during the whole war, and assisted in the capture of near four- 
" score prizes, by which he has acquired very little more than the 
" approbation of his captains, and the love and reverence of the 



" Had our prize been a king's ship Mr. Grosvenor would have 
" come home in her, and his promotion would most probably have 
" followed in train ; however, as she is a very fine new frigate and 
" will I dare say be reported fit for the king's use, the opportunity 
" is judged favourable for recommending Mr. Grosvenor's preten- 
" sions, and as the Milford may be said to be now acting under 
" your lordship's orders, I flatter myself you will take her under 
" your protection by granting your good offices with Lord Sand* 

t t wich 



322 MEMOIRS OF 

?c wich in Mr. Grosvenor's behalf ; an obligation, that I shall ever 
" gratefully carry in remembrance. 

" I have the honour to be, &c. &c. 

" R. C." 

This letter produced no advantage to Mr. Grosvenor, nor any 
other gratification to me except the recollection that I had done my 
best to serve a meritorious officer. 

At Buenos Ay res I was visited by our minister Mr. Walpole, 
Commodore Johnstone, Sir John Hort the consul, Captain Payne 
and several gentlemen of the factory. On the 25th instant the cere- 
mony of the Corpus Christi took place in a day excessively sultry, 
when the king and prince walked with the patriarch of Lisbon, the 
religious orders, knights of Christ and nobility of Portugal in pro- 
cession through the streets, of which even the ruins were decorated 
with rich tapestries, silks and velvets, forming at once a splendid 
and a melancholy scene. I was with my daughters at a house, from 
which we had a very good view of what was passing, and as they 
presented themselves at an open window in their English dresses, 
(and I may add without vanity in all their native charms) they most 
evidently arrested the attention of the holy brotherhood in a man- 
ner, that by no means harmonised with the solemnity of their office; 
more perfect wolves in sheep's cloathing never were beheld. The 
haughtiness and ill-breeding of the Portuguese nobles is notorious 
to a proverb. One of these, the son of the minister Pombal, came 
into the room where I was waiting for the procession above men- 
tioned ; 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 323 

tioned ; turning to me with an air of supercilious protection, very 
awkwardly assumed, and making a motion with his hand towards a 
chair, he was pleased to tell me that I might sit down — There was 
an insolence in the manner of it irresistibly provoking, and I am not 
ashamed to say my answer was at least as contemptuous as his ad- 
dress was insolent. 

Early in the morning of the 30th I went with my daughters, and 
some of our naval friends to Cintra, visiting the palace of Queluz in 
the way : the terrors of an earthquake are evidently expressed in 
the construction of this palace, which is nothing more than a long 
range of pavilions in the Moorish character very richly furnished 
and profusely gilt ; the heat was quite oppressive, but the shady 
walks and delicious odour of the orange groves, the refreshing sight 
of the fountains and exquisite beauty of the flowers in high bloom and 
boundless abundance recompensed all we suffered by the mid-day 
violence of the burning sun. In the romantic and more temperate 
retreat of Cintra we enjoyed the most charming and enchanting 
scenes and prospects nature can display. The rock, the cork con- 
vent and the ancient palace of Cintra are objects that surpass de- 
scription ; from the latter of these the rock and town of Cintra, with 
all the country about it as far as to the palace of Mafra, till where it 
is bounded by the sea, form a most superb and interesting scene ; 
the interior of the castle is unfurnished, though the painted tiles, 
gilded ceilings and arrangement of the apartments, opening to par- 
terres, cut out of the rock in stories and terraces one above the 
other, is singularly grand and striking. In one of the great cham- 

t t 2 bers 



324 MEMOIRS OF 

bers the ceiling is ornamented with the scutcheons of all the noble 
families of Portugal affixed to the necks of stags of no ordinary 
painting or design, and, though very ancient, their remarkable 
freshness bespeaks the extreme softness and dryness of the climate ; 
in this collection the bearings and titles of the noble family of 
D'Aveiro had a conspicuous station, from which they are now dis- 
lodged and their very name expunged. 

On our return to Lisbon we passed the remarkable aqueduct of 
Alcantara so often described, and on the 5th of June at early morn- 
ing I received the expected dispatch from Mr. Hussey with letters 
inclosed for the Earl of Hillsborough and Lord George Germain — 
His letter to me was as follows — 

" Aranjuez 31st May 1780. 
" My dear friend, 

" I arrived here three days ago, conversed with the 
" minister of state upon the subject of your journey, and do find 
" that the delays, which this business met with, and the different 
" turn, which matters have taken, render this negociation every day 
" exceedingly arduous and difficult. However as the minister is so 
" very desirous of finding some means to bring it to a happy conclu- 
" sion, and as you are already so far advanced on your journey, I 
" think it by all means advisable that you come, (giving out that 
" you mean to pass through Spain for the benefit of your health) 
" and so give the negociation a fair trial. You know me too well 
" to suspect that 1 shall be wanting to cultivate the good wishes of 
*' the minister of state, and to incline him towards an accommo- 

" dation. 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 325 

" dation. My servant Daly carries a memorandum of the road and 
" the different places where the relays of carriages are to meet you. 

" Do not forget to mention to Mrs. Cumberland and the young 
" ladies their's and 

" Your affectionate friend 

" Thomas Hussey. 

" P. S. His Catholic majesty's orders are gone to Badajoz, the 
" frontier town, not to examine your baggage — " 

Embarrassed by this letter, and doubtful of the part I ought to 
take, I obeyed my instructions by resorting to our minister Mr. 
Walpole, and delivered to him a letter from Lord Hillsborough, the 
contents of which I was privy to, and by which I was directed to 
be confidential and explicit with him. As there was but one point, 
upon which he hesitated, and which I had good reason to know 
would not be made a stipulation obstructive to my measures, I was 
disposed according to Mr. Hussey's advice to give the negotiation a 
trial, though his letter was by no means such as I exacted from 
him, nor so explicit as to give me a safe rule to go by. Neverthe- 
less upon full consideration of all circumstances, and under the 
pcMsuasion that delay, (which was the utmost that Mr. Walpole 
suggested) would in effect be tantamount to absolute abandonment, 
I determined for the journey, and gave my reasons for pursuing the 
advice of Mr. Hussey, and meeting the advances of the Spanish 
minister, exemplified by his preparations for receiving me, in the 
following dispatch, which I transmitted to Lord Hillsborough by 
Sir William Burnaby, then upon his departure for England — 

"To 



326 MEMOIRS OF 

" To the Earl of Hillsborough." 

" Lisbon June 6th 1780. 
" My Lord, 

" In my letter No. 1. I informed your lordship of my 
' arival here on the 17th of last month at six in the afternoon, and 
' of Mr. Hussey's departure for Aranjuez on the 19th following at 
' eleven o'clock in the forenoon. I have now the honour of trans- 
6 mitting to you a letter, which I received yesterday morning by 
' express from Aranjuez, addressed to your lordship, and I inclose 
4 one also, which I had from Mr. Hussey of the 31st of last month 
' by the same conveyance. 

" The letter of my instructions is explicit for my returning to 
' England, or advancing to Spain, as that court shall make or not 
' make the cession of Gibraltar the basis of a negociation. The 
' simple resolution of this question formed the whole purport of 
' Mr. Hussey's journey, and as I well know it was clearly under- 
' stood on his part, I expected a reply in the same style of preci- 
' sion with these instructions : the case is now unexpectedly be- 
' come exceedingly embarrassing and delicate. As he does not say 
' that Spain stipulates for the cession aforesaid ; I do not consider 
' myself under orders to return ; on the other hand as he does not 
' tell me that she will treat without it, I am doubtful whether I am 
' warranted to advance. He says the minister is very desirous of 
1 finding means of bringing things to a happy conclusion, and I have 
' not only his authority, but good grounds from private information, 
' to give credit to his assertion : I am also furnished with the neces- 

" sary 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 327 

" sary passports from the minister of Spain and from her ambassa- 
" dor at this court. It remains therefore a question with me, and 
" a very difficult one I feel it, whether I should wait at Lisbon and 
" require a further explanation, or proceed without it. 

" If I take the first part of this alternative, I must expect it 
" will create offence to the punctilio of the Spanish court who have 
" given me their passport for myself and family, have not only pro- 
" vided me with every convenience of coaches and relays through 
" Spain, but have directed their ambassador here to give me every 
" furtherance from hence, that can accommodate me to Badajoz, 
" and I have this day received Count Fernan Nunez's passport with 
" a letter of recommendation to the Marquis de Ustariz, intendant 
" of Badajoz. By the terms, in which Count Florida Blanca has 
" couched my passport, it is set forth that I am travelling through 
" Spain towards Italy for the establishment of my health : under 
" this pretext it is in my power to take my route as a private tra- 
" veller, and by no means deliver to the minister your lordship's 
" letter until I have explicit satisfaction in the leading points of my 
" instructions : should I find the court of Spain acquiescent under 
" these particulars, success will justify a doubtful measure; whereas 
" if I withstand the invitation and advice of Mr. Hussey, sent no 
" doubt with the privity of the minister, and expressive of his good 
" wishes and desires for an accommodation, I shall throw every 
" thing into heat and ferment, ruin all Mr. Hussey 's influence, from 
" which I have so much to expect, and at once blast all his opera- 
" tions, now in so fair a train for success, and which probably have 

" been 



328 MEMOIRS OF 

been much advanced since Daly's departure. In short, my lord, 
I regard this dilemma as a case, in which personal caution points 
to one side, and public service to the other. In this light I view 
it, and although Mr. Hussey's letter to your lordship, (for it was 
under a flying seal) is as silent on the same material point, as that 
to me is, I have after full deliberation thought it for his majesty's 
service that I should no longer hesitate to pursue the advice of 
Mr. Hussey, but resolve to set out upon my journey for Spain. 

" The high opinion I entertain of Mr. Hussey's understanding 
weighs strongly with me for this measure, because I know he has 
intuition to penetrate chicanery, and discretion enough not to 
expose me to it ; and though he does not expressly say that there 
is no obstacle in my way, yet this I am persuaded must be his 
firm assurance and belief before he would commit me to the jour- 
ney. The verbal message he has sent me by his servant Daly that 
all is well, is to me a very encouraging circumstance, because it is 
a concerted token and pass- word between us, agreed upon when 
we were together in the frigate. The underlined expressions in 
the memorandum for my journey have not escaped my observa- 
tion, and I inclose you the original for your inspection : he says, 
I am impatient to tell you a thousand things, which I do not write. 
This marks to me an embarrassment and reserve in his letter, which 
probably arose from the necessity of his communicating it to the 
sub-minister Campo, or to the minister himself. The letters to 
your lordship and me were couched nearly in the same words, 
and these so much out of his style of expression, that they seem 

" either 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 329 

" either shaped to meet another man's thoughts, or to be of another 
" man's dictating. He tells me in the same memorandum, that at 
" Aranjuez every thing else, as well as his heart, will be ready to 
" receive me : these expressions from Mr. Husse}' I know to be no 
" trivial indications of his thoughts, and though I am sensible my 
" duty instructs me to take clearer lights for my guidance than 
" side-way hints and insinuations can supply, yet such circum- 
" stances may come as aids, though not as principals, in the for- 
" mation of an opinion. 

" I think it material to add that I have reason to believe the 
" dispatch, which the Spanish ambassador received from the mi- 
" nister by the hands of Daly, Mr. Hussey's servant, is expressive 
" of the same disposition to a separate accommodation with Great- 
" Britain, and accords with what is stated by Mr. Hussey in his 
" letter to your lordship. 

" Through the same intelligence I have discovered the channel, 
" by which the propositions fabricated in this place were conveyed 
" to the Spanish minister, and am to the bottom made acquainted 
" with that whole intrigue. I can only by this opportunity inform 
" your lordship, that it is a discovery of much importance to me 
" in my future proceedings, gives me power over, and possession 
" of, an agent in trust and confidence with the minister of Spain, 
" as well as with the ambassador here, and that the deductions I 
" draw from it strongly operate to incline my judgment to the reso- 
" lution I have now taken of entering Spain. 

" I have the honour, &c. &c. R. C 

u u Having 



330 MEMOIRS OF 

Having hired carriages and provided myself with things neces- 
sary for my journey to Badajoz, I wrote on the next morning the 
following letter to the Secretary of State, separate and distinct 
from the dispatch, inserted as above 

" To the Earl of Hillsborough." 

" Lisbon June 7th 1780. 
" My Lord, " Wednesday morning 5 o'clock. 

" I am sensible I have taken a step, which exposes me 
if to censure upon failure of success, unless the reasons, on which I 
" have acted, shall be weighed with candour and even with indul- 
" gence. In the decision, I have taken for entering Spain, I have 
" had no other object but to keep alive a negociation, to which any 
" backwardness or evasion on my part in the present crisis would 
" I am persuaded be immediate extinction. I know where my 
" danger lies, but as my endeavours for the public service and the 
" honour of your administration are sincere, I have no doubt but I 
" shall obtain your protection. 

" Though I dare not rest my public argument so much on pri- 
" vate opinion as I am disposed to confess to you, yet you will 
" plainly see how far I am swayed by my confidence in Mr. Hussey, 
" and this will be the more evident when I must fairly own that 
" Mr. Walpole's opinion is not with me for my immediate journey 
*' into Spain : I owe this justice to him, that, if I fail, it may be 
" known he is free from all participation in my error. I have deli- 
.*' vered your letter, and in general opened the business to him as I 

" was 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 331 

" was directed to do, but I have disclosed to him no other instruc- 
" tion, except that, on which Mr. Hussey 's errand turns. He ap- 
" pears to me totally to discredit the sincerity of Spain towards any 
" accommodation with Great-Britain, and this opinion certainly 
" coloured his whole argument upon the subject : had we agreed in 
" this principal position, it is not likely we should have differed in 
" deductions from it. 

" I have written to Mr. Hussey, and beg leave to send you a 
" copy of my letter. I had fully purposed, in conformity to what 
" I said to your lordship, that my family should not accompany me 
" upon my journey, but the nature of the passport and the circum- 
" stances, that have arisen, make it indispensible for me to take 
" them with me, not only as an excuse for my delay upon the road 
" till Mr. Hussey shall meet me, but also as a cover for my pretence 
" of health, should I find it necessary to pass through Spain with- 
" out an explanation with the minister, &c. &c. 

" R. C." 

At three o'clock in the afternoon of the 8th instant, I took 
my departure from Lisbon, embarking in one of the queen's barges 
for A Idea Gallega, whilst my wife and daughters accompanied me 
in the Milford's cutter with the first lieutenant and master. 

The passage to Aldea Gallega is about nine miles up the river, 
which here forms a magnificent sheet of water. At the wretched 
Posada in this place we had our first sample of that dirt and loath- 
someness, which admit of no description, and which every baiting 
place throughout Portugal and Spain with little variation presented 

u u 2 to 



33% MEMOIRS OF 

to us. Men may endure such scenes ; to women of delicacy they 
are, and must be, nauseous in the extreme. The policy of these 
courts agrees in prohibiting the publican from furnishing any thing 
to the traveller but firing : provisions must be purchased by the 
way, and the kid, whose carcass has dangled on your carriage in 
the sun and dust, half fried by the one, and more than half basted 
by the other, must be roasted for your meal by the faggot, that you 
purchase of your host, which in the meanwhile if you do not man- 
fully defend, the muleteer and way-fairing carrier will take a share 
of, and incense your poor carrion kid with the execrable fumes of 
his rank mess of oil and garlick. This rarely fails to stir up strife 
and fierce contention, which the host takes little or no pains to 
allay, sometimes ferments, till if your people cannot drive off the 
interlopers with a high hand, you call in the peace-officer of the 
village or town to adjust your rights, which he is in no haste to do 
till you quicken his tardy sense of justice with a portion of your 
roast meat. I was once driven to this reference, when my people were 
out-numbered, and then my defender gave me gravely to understand 
that his spouse was extremely partial to cold turkey, that alluring 
object having been incautiously exposed to his eager ken. I tried 
if he would compound for a leg, but his spouse had a decided pre- 
ference for the wing, and nothing short of half could move him to 
give sentence for my right. I had purchased at Lisbon two grey 
mules for the saddle at a high price ; they were beautiful creatures, 
very fast trotters and perfectly sure-footed, so that I rode occa- 
sionally and could make short excursions, when there was any 

thing 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 333 

thing better than a dreary wilderness to tempt me out of the 
road. 

On the 9th at three o'clock in the morning Captain Payne ar- 
rived, having been all night on the water; we breakfasted, and 
having taken leave of our friends, departed from Aldea Gallega, 
our road lying over a sandy country, interspersed however with the 
olive and cork tree, and almost covered with myrtle bushes in full 
bloom. We passed by Vendas Novas, an unfurnished palace of the 
Queen's, and put up our beds for the night at a lone house near 
Silveira. On the 10th we passed Montemor, situated on a beautiful 
eminence, and further on Arrayolas, where there are the remains 
of a stately castle of Moorish construction, as it should seem, and 
concluded our day's journey at a lone house, called Venda do 
Duque. On the 11th, passing through Estremos we came to Elvas, 
the frontier town of Portugal, within sight of Badajoz in the plain 
at three leagues distance. The works erected by Count la Lippe 
on the hill, which commands the town, and the fortifications of the 
town itself seemed very extensive and in perfect repair, and the 
troops well accoutred and in good order, but the more striking 
sight to me was that of the aqueduct : it is raised on four lofty 
arches of stone one over the other, and enters the town in a very 
grand style. The suburbs are finely planted and laid out into walks 
by Count la Lippe, the projector, to whom Elvas is indebted for. 
those public works, that constitute at once both her ornament and her 
defence. As our minister at Lisbon had not furnished me with any 
letter to the governor of Elvas, I was not only put to trouble about 

my 



334 MEMOIRS OF 

my baggage, but evidently became an object of suspicion. The 
former of these difficulties I got over by a bribe, but the latter 
subjected me to restraint, for upon attempting to walkout of my 
inn I found a guard of soldiers with fixed bayonets at the gate, who 
prevented me from stirring out, and mounted on me through the 
remainder of the day and the whole night, which I passed there. 
The next morning, whilst my carriages were in waiting for me, an 
Irish benedictine walked into my room, and in a very authoritative 
and unceremonious style insisted on my staying there all day, and 
even was proceeding to countermand my carriages. He believed, 
or pretended to believe, that I was an American agent or negocia- 
tor, travelling into Spain, and began to inveigh most virulently 
against the king and country, of which he was a subject born : if 
he was employed to sound me (which is not improbable) he exe- 
cuted his office very clumsily, yet his insolent importunity was a 
considerable interruption and extremely troublesome. His language 
in the mean time was intolerably offensive, and his action worse, 
for as I reached out my hand to take my pistols from the table, the 
saucy fellow caught at them, with an action so suspicious, that I 
was obliged to put him from me, and sending my ladies out of the 
room before me to the carriages, got in last myself and ordered the 
postillions to proceed. The pertinacious monk still continued to op- 
pose my going, and even vented his anathemas on the drivers, if 
they presumed to move. When I saw at the same time that there 
was a party of dragoons mounted and parading at the gate with 
drawn swords before the heads of my mules, I doubted whether they 

were 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 335 

were in fact an escort of honour or arrest, but in a few minutes my 
leading carriage moved, and thus guarded I passed the barriers, 
whilst the monk, keeping his hand upon my carriage, and vocife- 
rating without intermission, never left me till we had passed through 
all the out posts, and fairly entered the plain in sight of Badajoz. 

It was not pleasant, and I did not think that the proper pre- 
cautions had been taken for me. When I had got rid of my monk, 
(the guard having taken no notice of his insolent behaviour) in about 
a league and a half's driving a foot's-pace we came to a small 
stream, which divides the territories of Portugal from Spain. Here 
we watered the mules, whilst on the opposite bank I perceived a 
party of Spanish infantry waiting as it seemed to receive and escort 
me. My Portuguese dragoons in perfect silence wheeled about and 
departed, and no sooner had I touched the Spanish soil than the 
party presented arms, and a messenger in the livery of the king 
with his badge of office on his sleeve, signified to me that coaches 
were in waiting for me at Badajoz, and that he had his Catholic 
majesty's commands to attend upon me through my journey. During 
this, my Portuguese postillions, finding themselves in my power, 
and apprehending no doubt that their hesitation in obeying me 
against the denunciations of the aforesaid benedictine, might justly 
have offended me, fell on their knees in the most abject manner, 
kissing the skirts of my coat and imploring pardon and forgiveness. 
Having ordered them to mount and proceed, we soon reached Ba- 
dajoz, and were received into the garrison with all the honours 
they could shew us. As a town Badajoz has nothing to engage 

the 



336 MEMOIRS OF 

the traveller, and as a fortified place stands in no degree of com- 
parison with Elvas. The troops, being mostly invalids, made a 
very indifferent appearance, but the windows and balconies were 
thronged with spectators, who bestowed every mark of favour and 
good will upon us as we passed the streets. 

Here I found a coach and six mules in waiting, and after some 
stay set forward at midnight, the gates being opened for me, and 
a guard turned out by order of the governor, and we proceeded to 
Miajada, where a fresh relay was in readiness. The province of 
Estremadura is miserably barren, producing nothing to relieve the 
eye but cork trees thinly scattered, and here and there a few dis- 
torted olive trees. The like disconsolate aspect of a country, where 
neither cattle nor habitations were to be seen, prevailed through the 
whole of our next stage to Truxillo, where we halted on the night 
of the 14th instant. 

In this stage we were warned by our attendant messenger to be 
upon our guard against robbers, and in truth the country furnished 
most appropriate scenes and inviting opportunities for such adven- 
turers. I had three English servants and two men hired in Lisbon, 
besides the messenger above-mentioned, and myself and my English 
servants in particular were excellently armed and ammunitioned. 
My Englishmen consisted of Mr. Hussey's man Daly, a London 
hair-dresser of the name of Legge, whom I took for the convenience 
of my wife and daughters, and my own faithful servant Thomas 
Camis, of tried courage and attachment, who had lived with me 
from the age of ten years. In the middle of the night, when we 

were 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 337 

were in the depth of the forest, or rather wilderness, the Spaniard 
rode up to my coach-window, and telling me we were then in the 
most suspicious part of our road, recommended it to me to collect 
my people about me and keep them together. Daly indeed was 
not far behind, but in a state of absolute intoxication and sleeping 
on his mule: my hair-dresser pretty much in the same state, but 
totally disabled from excess of cowardice, of which he had given 
some unequivocal and most ridiculous tokens before and during our 
action in the frigate ; I had not much reliance on my Portuguese, 
one of whom was a black fellow, and in the mean time my brave 
and trusty servant Camis was not to be found, nor did he answer to 
any call. Distressed with apprehension lest some fatal accident 
had befallen this most valuable man, I got out of my coach deter- 
mined not to move from the spot without him, and sent the Spanish 
messenger and two other men in search of him. During their ab- 
sence I heard a trampling of horses, and soon discovered through 
the dusk of night two men armed with guns, which they carried 
under the thigh, who rode smartly up to the carnage and proved to 
be archers on the patrole. This confirmed the report that the road 
was infested by robbers, and whilst this was passing I had the satis- 
faction to be joined by my servant Thomas Camis on foot, his mule 
having sunk under him, exhausted with fatigue. He now mounted 
behind the coach, and the men dispatched in search for him hav- 
ing come in, we pursued our route and arrived in safety at Truxillo. 
From Truxillo we passed a very rugged and mountainous tract 
of country to Venta del Lugar Nuevo on the banks of the Tagus. 

x x This 



338 MEMOIRS OF 

This is a very romantic station, and the bridge a curious and most 
striking object passing from one rock to another upon two very 
lofty Roman arches, the river flowing underneath at a prodigious 
depth. 

On the 16th we passed through La Calzada to Talavera la 
Reina, a town in New Castile of considerable population and 
extent. A silk fabric is here established under the king's espe- 
cial patronage. Here the following letter from Mr. Hussey met 
me— — 

" From Mr. Hussey to me." 

" Aranjuez Wednesday morning 
" My dearest friend, " 14th June 1780. 

" How could you suspect that I would send for you 
" if I found the obstacle in my way, which makes you so uneasy ? 
" But it Was always my intention to go part of the way from Aran- 
** juez to meet you, to indulge my affection by personally attend- 
" ing you and your family as soon as possible ; but as you do not 
" mention what delay you intended to make in Badajoz, I cannot 
" precisely guess the day of your arrival here, and therefore I dis- 
" patch this letter to meet you at Talavera la Reina, that I may 
" know it more exactly, which will be by returning a line to me, 
" informing me of the day, and whether you think it will be in the 
" morning or evening. As the distance between Talavera and 
•' Aranjuez is too great for one day's journey with the same mules, 
" I have ordered a fresh set to be posted for you seven leagues from 
*' this place at La Venta de Olias, two leagues and a half from that 

part 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 339 

" part of the Tagus called Las Barcas de Azecar, where you cross 
" the water, and probably you will meet me ; otherwise you will 
" come on and meet me on the road. This fresh set of mules was 
" absolutely necessary, because you could find no place to sleep in 
" between Talavera and Aranjuez. You do not come through To- 
" ledo. I long to embrace you and my amiable friends, and open 
" my mind to your satisfaction, as well as my pleasure. 

" Adieu ! 

"T. H." 

To this letter I answered as follows 

" To Mr. Hussey." 

" Talavera la Reina, Friday 16th 
" My dearest friend, " June half-past 5 evening. 

" Your consolatory letter meets me at the end of a 
" long and laborious journey, and like a magical charm puts all 
" my cares to rest at once. Say not however how could I suspect — 
*' Had that been the case, how could I advance ? Yet I am come 
" at every risque upon the reliance, which I am fixed to repose in 
" your honour and friendship upon all occasions. 

" I have entered on an arduous service without any conditions, 
" and I fear without securing to myself that sure support, which 
" they, by whom and for whom I am employed, ought to hold 
" forth to me ; but you know full well who is, and who is not, my 
" corresponding minister, and if success does not bear me through 
" in this step, which I have taken, my good intentions will not 
" stand me in much stead. Still, when I saw that my reluctance 

x x 2 " would 



340 MEMOIRS OF 

" would affect your situation, dash every measure you have laid, 
" and annihilate all chance of rendering service to my country in 
" this trying crisis, I did not hesitate to risque this journey, even 
* against the advice of Mr. W. 

" We are not long since arrived after a most sultry stage, and 
" have been travelling all night without a halt. I dare not but give 
" Mrs. Cumberland an hour or two's repose, and shall not take my 
" departure from hence till midnight. I shall stop at La Venta de 
" Olias to relieve my party from a few hot hours, and shall be there 
" to-morrow morning about ten or eleven. I shall set out from 
" thence at seven o'clock in the evening at latest, and reach the 
" ferry at Las Barcas de Azecar at nine that evening — There if we 
" meet, or whenever else more convenient to yourself, it will I 
" trust in God be remembered as one of the happy moments, that 
" here and there have sparingly chequered the past life of your 

" Affectionate R. C." 

From Talavera on the 17th instant we came to the little village 
of Olias about half-way, where we took the necessary relief of rest, 
and as the weather was now intolerably hot, my wife and daughters 
being almost exhausted with fatigue, we laid by for the whole of 
the day. Here the Alcayde of the village very hospitably sent me 
refreshments, and called on me at my inn, offering his house and 
whatever it afforded. I returned his visit and found the good old 
man surrounded by his children and grand-children, a numerous 
family, grouped in their degrees, and sitting in their best apartment 
ready to receive me. After chocolate had been served the guitar 

was 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 341 

was introduced, and the younger parties danced their sequedillas. 
When they had animated themselves with this dance, the player 
on the guitar began to sound the notes of the fandango : I had seat- 
ed myself by the old grandfather, a feeble nerveless creature, and 
observed with some concern a paralytic motion vibrating in all his 
limbs and muscles, when at once unable to keep his seat he started 
up in a kind of ecstasy, and began snapping his fingers like casta- 
nets and dancing the fandango to my surprise and amusement. — 
This was the first time I had heard or seen it performed, and I 
ceased to wonder at the extravagant attachment which the Spaniards 
show for that national tune and dance. 

On Sunday the 18th of June, at five o'clock in the morning, we 
arrived at Aranjuez, and were most affectionately welcomed by Mr. 
Hussey. He delivered a paper to me dictated by the minister, and 
first appearances augured favourably for niy negociation. The day 
following I was visited by the sub-minister Campo, Anduaga and 
Escarano, (belonging to the minister's department,) also by the 
Due d'Almodovar, Abbe Curtis and others, and in the evening of 
that day I had my first interview with the Count Florida Blanca. 

I shall not enter upon local descriptions ; it is neither to my 
purpose, nor can it edify the reader, who will find all this done so 
much better by writers, who have travelled into Spain, and been 
more at leisure for looking about them than I ever was. My 
thoughts were soon distressfully occupied by the account, which 
met me, of the riots and disturbances in London by what was called 
Lord George Gordon's mob, which all but quite extinguished my 

hopes 



342 MEMOIRS OF 

hopes of success in the very outset of my business. I had repeated 
interviews with the minister, whom I visited by night, ushered by 
his confidential valet through a suite of five rooms, the door of every 
one of which was constantly locked as soon as I had passed it. The 
description of those dreadful tumults was given to the Spanish 
court by their ambassador at Paris, Count d'Aranda, and faithfully 
given without exaggeration. The effect it had .upon the King of 
Spain was great indeed, and for me most unfortunate, for I had 
no advices from my court to qualify or oppose it. How this intelli- 
gence operated on the mind of his Catholic Majesty can only be 
conceived by such as were acquainted with his character, and know 
to what degree he remained affected by the insurrection, then not 
long passed, in his own capital of Madrid. I will only say that 
my treaty was in shape, and such as my instructions would have 
warranted me to transmit and recommend. Spain had received a 
recent check from Admiral Rodney, Gibraltar had been relieved 
with a high hand, she was also upon very delicate and dubious 
terms with France. The crisis was decidedly in my favour ; my re- 
ception flattering in the extreme ; the Spanish nation was anxious 
for peace, and both court, ecclesiastics and military professedly 
anti-gallican. The minister did not lose an hour after my arrival, 
but with much apparent alacrity in the cause immediately proceed- 
ed to business. I never had any reason upon reflection to doubt 
the sincerity of Count Florida Blanca at this moment, and verily 
believe we should have advanced the business of the preliminaries, 
if the fatal news of the riots had not most critically come to hand 

that 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 343 

that very day, on which by the minister's own appointment we were 
to meet for fair discussion of the terms, while nothing seemed to 
threaten serious difficulty or disagreement between us. 

According to appointment I came to him, perfectly ignorant of 
what had come to pass in my own country : I had prepared myself 
to the best of my capacity for a meeting and discussion, which it 
behoved me to manage with discretion and address, and which ac- 
cording to my view of it promised to crown my mission with suc- 
cess. We were to write, and Campo was to be present, so that 
when I entered the minister's inner chamber, and saw only a small 
table with a single candle, no Campo present and no materials for 
writing, I own my mind misgave me : I did not wait more than two 
minutes before Florida Blanca came out of his closet, and in a la- 
mentable tone sung out the downfall of London ; king, ministers 
and government whelmed in ruin, the rebellion of America trans- 
planted to England, and heartily as he condoled with me, how 
could he under such circumstances commit his court to treat with 
me ? I did not take the whole for truth, and was too much on my 
guard to betray any astonishment or alarm, but left him to lament 
the unhappy state of my wretched country, and affected to treat 
the narrative as a French exaggeration of the transitory tumults of 
a London mob. In the mean time I could not fail to see, that 
nothing was to be done on my part, but to yield to the moment and 
wait for information, upon which I might rely. All that I did in 
the interim was to address a letter to the minister and confidently 
risque a prediction, that the tumult would be quashed so speedily 

and 



344 MEMOIRS OF 

and completely, as to add dignity to the king's government and 
stability to his ministers. He gave for answer that both his Catholic 
Majesty and himself trembled for the king, but of the extermina- 
tion of the ministry no question could be made. I renewed my as- 
sertions in terms more confident than before, not so much upon 
conviction as from desperation, well knowing that, if I was undone 
by the event, it was of little importance that I was disgraced by my 
over-confidence and presumption. 

In the course of a very few days my prediction was happily veri- 
fied, for on the 24th I was informed by Escarano, that the rioters 
were quelled, Lord George Gordon committed to the Tower, and 
indemnification ordered to the sufferers in the tumult, and on the 
day following the minister sent me the letter he had received from 
Count d'Aranda to explain why he had delayed to inform me of 
the news from London I availed myself of this happy change by 
every means in my power for bringing back the negociation to that 
state of forwardness, in which it stood before it was interrupted, 
but the minds and understandings of those, with whom I had to 
deal, were not easy to be cured of alarms once given, or prejudices 
once received. It is not necessary for me to discuss the characters, 
with whom it was my lot to treat, it is enough to say that during more 
than a year's abode in Spain, I believe no moment occurred so favour- 
able to the business I had in hand, as that of which ill-fortune had 
deprived me in the very outset of my undertaking. There was a 
gloomy being, out of sight and inaccessible, whose command as 
Confessor over the royal mind was absolute, and whose bigotry was 

disposed 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 345 

disposed to represent every thing in the darkest colours against a 
nation of heretics, whose late enormities afforded too good a sub- 
ject for his spleen to descant upon ; and in the mind, where no illu- 
mination, no elasticity resides, impressions will strike strongly and 
sink deep. 

On the 26th I had completed my dispatches, in which I gave a 
full and circumstantial detail of my proceedings, the hopes I had 
entertained and the interruption I had met with, the conferences 
and correspondencies I had held with the minister, and the mea- 
sures I had pursued for reviving the negociation, and reconducting 
it according to the tenour of my instructions. In this dispatch I 
observe to the Secretary of State, " That although I relied upon 
" his lordship's kind interpretation of my motives for leaving Lisbon, 
" yet it was no inconsiderable anxiety that I suffered till my doubts 
" were satisfied upon the points which Mr. Hussey's letter had not 
" sufficiently explained. As it appeared to me a case, where I 
" might use my discretion, and in which the inconveniencies inci- 
" dental to my disappointment bore no proportion to the good, that 
" might result from my success, I decided for the journey, which 
" I had now performed, and flattered myself his lordship would see 
" no cause to regret the step I had taken/' — 

" Had I not made ready use of my passports and relays, I had 
" good reason to believe my hesitation would have proved decisive 
" against any treaty ; whereas now I had the satisfaction of seeing 
" many things point to a favourable and friendly issue." — 

y y Speaking 



3^6 MEMOIRS OF 

Speaking of a probability of detaching Spain antecedent to the 
news of the disturbances in London, I tell the Secretary of State — 
" That the moment for detaching Spain is now peculiarly favour- 
" able : she is upon the worst terms with France ; not only the 
" King of Naples, but the Queen of Portugal have written pres- 
" singly to his Catholic Majesty to make peace with England, and 
*' since my arrival a further influence is set to work to aid the friends 
" of peace, and this is the Due de Losada, who on behalf of his 
" nephew the Due d'Almodovar has actually solicited the embassy 
" to England, and been favourably received. These and many 
" other circumstances conspire to press the scale for peace ; in the 
" opposite one we may place their unretrieved disgrace in the relief 
" of Gibraltar, their hopes in the grand armament from Cadiz of the 
" 28th of April, their over-rated successes in West Florida, and 
" their belief that your expeditions to the South- American conti- 
" nent are dropt s and that Sir Edward Hughes's condition disables 
" him from attempting any enterprise against the Manillas — " I 
then recite the circumstance that gave a check to my negociation, 
state the measures I had since taken for resuming it, and transmit a 
Summary of such points in requisition as require answers and in- 
structions, and conclude with suggesting such a mode of accommo- 
dating these to the punctilio of the Spanish court, as in my opinion 
cannot fail to bring the treaty to a successful issue — " If this is 
" conveyed," (I observe) " in mild and friendly terms towards 
" Spain, who submits the mode to the free discretion of Great 

" Britain, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 34? 

" Britain, and requests it only as a salvo, I think I have strong 
" grounds to say her family compact will no longer hold her from a 
" separate peace with Great Britain — " 

On the 27th I removed with my family to Madrid, where I took 
a commodious house in an airy situation, and on the 1st of July 
the king and royal family arrived from Aranjuez. Though I had 
frequent communications with Count Florida Blanca through the 
sub-minister Campo, which occasioned me to dispatch letters on 
the 6th instant, yet I had no appointed interview till the loth ; 
our treaty paused for the expected answer to my transmission be- 
fore mentioned, and it was clear to me that the Spanish minister, 
under the pretence of sounding the sincerity of the British cabinet, 
was in effect manoeuvring upon the suspicion of their stability. 
Nevertheless in this conversation, which he held on the loth instant, 
he expressly declares, "That if Great Britain sends back any an- 
" swer, which shall be couched in mild and moderate terms towards 
" Spain, he will then proceed upon the treaty with all possible good 
" will, and give me his ideas without reserve, endeavouring to ad- 
" just some expedient satisfactory to both parties ; but he fears that 
" our ministry is so constituted as to deceive my hopes in the tem- 
" per and quality of their reply — " 

During this interval, whilst I remained without an answer to 
my dispatch, the court removed to San Ildefonso, where Count 
D'Estaing arrived, specially commissioned to traverse my negocia- 
tion, and detach the Spanish court from their projected treaty with 
Great-Britain. France in the mean time sacrificed her whole naval 

y y 2 campaign 



348 MEMOIRS OF 

campaign in the harbour of Cadiz, where a combined force of sixty 
line of battle ships was assembled, whilst the British fleet under the 
successive commands of Geary and Derby did worse than nothing, 
and the capture of our great East and West- Indian convoy by the 
Spanish squadron completed their triumph and our discomfiture. 

A mind so fluctuating and feeble as that of the Spanish minister 
was not formed to preserve equanimity in success, or to persist in 
its resolutions against the counter-action of opinions. He was at 
this period absolutely intoxicated not only by the capture of our 
trading ships, but by the alluring promises of D'Estaing, and sur- 
rendered himself to the self-interested councils of Galvez, minister 
of the Indies, for the continuance of the war. That minister, (the 
creature of France to all intents and purposes) had like himself 
been raised to high office from the humble occupation of a petty 
advocate, and by early habits of intimacy, as likewise by superio- 
rity of intellect, acquired a power over his understanding little short 
of absolute ascendancy. 

Through the influence of this man and by the intrigues of Count 
D'Estaing my situation at this period became as critical as possible ; 
my house was beset with spies, who made report of every thing 
they could collect or impute ; I was proscribed from all my accus- 
tomed friends and visitors, whilst no one ventured publicly to enter 
my doors but the empress's ambassador Count Kaunitz, whom no 
circumstances ever separated from me, and a few religious, whose 
visits to me were more than suspicious. The most insidious means 
were practised to break Mr. Hussey from me, but though they had 

their 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 349 

their effect for a short time, his good sense soon discovered the con- 
trivance and prevented its effects. 

Finding myself thus beset, I attached to my service certain con- 
fidential agents, who were extremely useful to me, and amongst 
these a gentleman in the employ of one of the northern courts, the 
ablest in that capacity, and of the most consummate address, I 
ever became acquainted with ; by his means I possessed myself of 
authentic papers and documents, and was enabled to expose and 
effectually to traverse some very insidious and highly important 
manoeuvres much to my own credit and to the satisfaction of the 
cabinet, before whom they were laid by my corresponding mi- 
nister. 

I now received the long expected answer to my first dispatch. 
It served little more than to cover a letter to Count Florida Blanca, 
and that letter found him now in the hands of D'Estaing, and more 
than half persuaded that the co-operation of France would put him 
in possession of Gibraltar, that coveted fortress, which I would not 
suffer him even to name, and for which Spain would almost have 
laid the map of her islands, and the keys of her treasury at my feet. 
I must confess this letter, which I had looked to with such hope, 
was more suited to gratify his purposes than mine, for if quibble and 
evasion were what he wished to avail himself of at this moment, he 
certainly found no want of opportunity for the accomplishment of 
his wish. 

But if the inclosed letter was not altogether what I hoped for, 
the covering letter was most decidedly what I had not deserved, for 

it 



350 MEMOIRS OF 

it conveyed a more than half implied reproof for my having written 
to the Spanish Minister on the matter of the riots, and at the same 
time acknowledges that my paper was cautiously worded, and that I 
had most certainly succeeded in my argument — Why I was not to 
write to the minister, who had first written to me, especially when 
I wrote so cautiously and argued so successfully, I could never com- 
prehend. When I was surprised by a very alarming and unplea- 
sant piece of intelligence, conveyed to my knowledge through the 
channel of my country's enemy, not of my country's minister, what 
could I do more conformable to my duty than attempt to soften the 
impressions it had created ? I had not been five minutes arrived 
before the minister's letter and proposals were put into my hands. 
What could occur to me so natural both in policy and politeness 
as to write to him, especially on a subject so deeply interesting, 
so imperiously demanding of me an appeal, that to have sunk 
under it in silence would have been disgraceful in the extreme ? 

In the same letter I am reminded — That I was instructed not even 
to converse upon any particular proposition, until I was satisfied of the 
willingness of the Court of Spain to treat at all — Of this willingness his 
lordship professes to doubt, and grounds that doubt upon what he 
gathers from my report of the change, which seemed to have been 
wrought in the disposition of the minister by the intelligence of the 
disturbances in London ; whereas the conversation, which he alludes 
to, was held before that intelligence arrived, when the willingness to 
treat was put out of all doubt by the very progress made in that 
treaty, and which was only not compleated by the check which 

that 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 351 

that intelligence gave to it. If when the premier of Spain assured 
himself of the total overthrow of our ministry he hesitated to pro- 
ceed in treating with the agent of that ministry, it is nothing won- 
derful; but it would have been wonderful, if when I had such 
proofs of his willingness, I had not been satisfied with them, because 
something totally unforeseen might come to pass to thwart the 
business we were then engaged in. By parity of reason I might as 
well have been made responsible for the riots themselves, as for the 
consequences that resulted from them. It is a pity that his lord- 
ship did not advert to the order of time laid down in my dispatch, 
by which he could not have failed to discover, thajt in one part of it 
I was reporting conversation held when all was well, and in the 
other part remarking upon embarrassments naturally produced by 
unforeseen events of the most alarming nature. 

That I had been careful enough to have satisfactory proofs of a 
willingness to treat before I committed myself to conversation is 
sufficiently clear from the circumstance above mentioned of the 
overtures presented to me in the very instant of my arrival, before I 
had seen the minister, or he had seen my letter of accreditation. 
Willingness more unequivocal hardly can be conceived, and when I 
did present that letter upon my first interview I reported to my 
secretary of state the sum total of my conversation, which consist- 
ing only of the following words, copied verbatim from the tran- 
script of my letter to Lord Hillsborough, could not much edify his 
excellency, or divulge any secrets I was instructed to be reserved 
upon. I tell his lordship in my letter of the 26th of June 1780, — 

" That 



352 MEMOIRS OF 

" That after the first civilities I put into the minister's hands his 
" lordship's letter, which I desired he would consider as conveying 
" in the language of sincerity the mind of a most just and upright 
" king, who in his love of peace rejoices to meet similar sentiments 
" in the breast of his Catholic majesty, and who has been graciously 
" pleased to send me to confer with his excellency, not from my 
" experience in negociation, but as one confidential to the business 
" in all its stages, and zealously devoted to conduct it to an issue — " 
I proceed to say — That " as this visit passed wholly in expressions 
" of civility, I shall observe no further to your lordship upon it, 
" than that I was perfectly well pleased with my reception." 

If in any one part of my conduct or conversation I had advanced 
a step beyond the line of my instructions, or varied from them in a 
single instance, I should not have sought to shelter myself under 
the peculiar difficulties of my situation, I must have met the re- 
proof I merited, and was certain to receive ; but when I was ar- 
raigned for giving credit to sincerity, when it did exist, and being 
doubtful of it, when it wavered, as I was not conscious of an error, 
I was not moved by a reproof; but without entering into any argu- 
mentation, unprofitable and extraneous, applied my utmost dili- 
gence to the business I was upon, and continued to dictate to Mr. 
Hussey my dispatches for England, when I was disabled from writ- 
ing them by a fractured arm. 

The instant I was able to endure the motion of my coach, I 
attended upon the minister Florida Blanca at San Ildefonso : D'Es- 
taing was there, in high favour and much caressed ; Hussey was not 

permitted 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 353 

permitted to accompany me; I was alone,- and closely watched. It 
was the most unfavourable moment that I passed during my whole 
residence in Spain. Florida Blanca, instead of taking up his nego- 
tiation where he left it, gave little credit or attention to the letter 
of Lord Hillsborough, but evasively adverted to certain propositions, 
which he had made before I came into Spain and transmitted 
through the hands of Mr. Hussey, to which propositions he observed 
our ministry had returned no answer — " I admitted that no answer 
" had been given to the propositions he alluded to, because they 
" were formed upon the suggestions of Commodore Johnstone at 
" Lisbon without any authority : it was a matter I had in charge 
" to disavow those overtures in the most direct terms ; they neither 
" originated with the cabinet, nor were ever before it ; but if he 
" could stand in need of any proof to satisfy his doubts as to the 
" disposition of my court towards peace, I desired him to recollect 
" that I had been sent into Spain for that express purpose, without 
" any interchange on his part, and against the formal practice 
" of states in actual war. — " He acknowledged that my observation 
was fair, and that he admitted it, but he again reverted to Commo- 
dore Johnstone, observing " That although he might take on hiin- 
" self to make unauthorised propositions (which by the way he 
" must think was strange presumption, and still more strange that 
" it was passed over with impunity) yet he said that he answered 
" with authority ; his propositions had the sanction of his court, 
" and as such he hoped they merited an answer from mine/' It 

z z was 



354 MEMOIRS OF 

was now clear to me, when he was driven to allude to these unac- 
credited propositions, that evasion was his only object. 

" Did he now refer to them/' I asked, " as the actual basis of 
« a treaty ?— " 

He saw no reason to the contrary. 

" They contained," I said, " an article for the cession of Gib- 
" raltar." 

They did. 

" How then did such a stipulation accord with his word given, 
" that I should be subjected to no requisition on that point ?" 

He was now evidently embarrassed, and turning aside to the 
sub-minister Campo, held some conversation with him apart : he 
then resumed his discourse, but in a desultory way, and being one 
of the most irritable men living, was so entirely off his guard as to 
let out nearly the whole of Count D'Estaing's intrigue, and plainly 
intimated that Gibraltar was an object, for which the king his 
master would break the Family-Pact and every other engagement 
with France, which he exemplified by stamping the very paper 
itself under his feet upon the marble floor ; when recollecting him- 
self after awhile, and composing his countenance, that had been 
distorted with agitation, he said — " That if I would bind him to 
" his word, it must be so. However, if the article for Gibraltar 
" was inadmissible, what prevented our taking the remaining pro- 
(f* positions into consideration ?" 

I told him, and with truth, that I had seen his propositions, but 

was 



a 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 355 

was not in possession of them. " Would he put them down afresh 
and join me in discussing them ?" 
" The Abbe Hussey had his original, and he had taken no 
" copy." 

As I recollected enough of these propositions to know myself 
restrained from treating upon them, it occurred to me, as the only 
expedient left to keep the treaty alive, to consent to his sending 
them over by Mr. Hussey, who was now become heartily sick of his 
situation, and catching at every possible plea for his returning 
home. Still I was resolved that the proposal of sending over pro- 
positions of that sort by Mr. Hussey should not originate with me, 
though I was perfectly willing to acquiesce in it, as giving my mi- 
nisters the chance of getting out of a war, which I thought good 
policy would rather have sought to narrow in its extent than to 
widen, and which ever since I had been in Spain presented nothing 
but a succession of disasters. 

This expedient of getting Mr. Hussey to be sent home by the 
minister with propositions, which, though upon a broader scale of 
treaty than my instructions allowed me to embrace, were yet in my 
opinion of them by no means inadmissible, appeared to me the best 
I could resort to in the present moment. With this idea in my 
thoughts I asked Count Florida Blanca if he knew the mind of 
France, and whether he was prepared with any overtures on her 
part, which could be transmitted. — I put this question experimen- 
tally, for I had obtained pretty full information of what D'Estaing 
had been about. 

z z 2 He 



356 



MEMOIRS OF 



He had by this time recovered his serenity, and with great deli- 
beration made answer to me, as nearly as it can be rendered, (for he 
always spoke in his own mother-tongue) to this effect — " We have 
" no overtures to make on the part of France; France, as well as 
" all the other courts, which have representatives here resident, has 
" been very inquisitive touching your business in this place ; the 
" only answer given on our part has been, that the Catholic King 
" is an honourable monarch, and will faithfully observe all his en- 
" gagements : on the faith of this single assertion the whole matter 
" rests. If your court is sincere for peace, let her now set to work 
" upon that business, which sooner or later must be the business of 
" all parties. We will honestly and ardently second her endea- 
" vours ; we do not put her to any thing, which may revolt her dig- 
" nity ; we acknowledge and conceive the degree of sensibility (call 
" it if you please indignation) which she must harbour against a state 
" in actual alliance with the rebel subjects of her empire ; let her 
" act with that dignity, which is her due, constantly in sight ; but 
" let her meet his Catholic Majesty in his disposition for finishing a 
" war, which can only exhaust all parties ; and as she best knows 
" what her own interests will admit, let her suggest such terms, as 
" she would receive, was France the proponent, and let her couple 
" them with terms for Spain, and if these be fair and reasonable on 
" both sides, and such as Spain in her particular can possibly ac- 
" cede to, the Catholic King will close with her on his own behalf, 
'** and exert all his influence with his ally to make the peace general. 
" This is an arduous and delicate business ; let us cordially unite 



our 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 35? 

" our endeavours to bring it forward. I shall be at all times ready 
" to confer with you freely and without disguise, and let no dif- 
" ference of opinion affect our personal good understanding." 

The day following this conference Mr. Hussey arrived at San 
Ildefonso, and having communicated to him what had passed and 
my wish for his going to England with the minister's propositions, 
he readily agreed to it, and before that day passed the sub-minister 
Campo came to my house to sound me on this very expedient, ma- 
naging as he conceived with great finesse to induce me to consent 
to what in fact I much desired, and expressing, as from the mi- 
nister, his earnest hope that I would not quit Spain in the interim. 
Unpleasant as my situation was now become, still I was unwilling 
to abandon the negociation, as I knew that D'Estaing was on his 
departure for Cadiz, where I had good reason to believe he would 
lose his influence and forfeit his popularity. I then availed myself 
of his informers, and through their channel gave out what I knew 
would come to his ears, and induce him to think that my negocia- 
tion was totally desperate : accordingly I departed from San Ilde- 
fonso, leaving Mr. Hussey to settle propositions with the minister, 
and the day following my return to Madrid, D'Estaing set out for 
his command at Cadiz. Florida Blanca offered to communicate to 
me copies of what he transmitted by Mr. Hussey, but for obvious 
reasons I declined his offer. 

D'Estaing at Cadiz soon lost all the interest he had gained at 
Court. He put to sea with his fleet against the protest of tin 1 
Spanish admiral, and with circumstances, that rendered him com- 
pletely 



358 MEMOIRS OF 

pletely unpopular. The British fleet under Admiral Darby was at 
sea in his track ; the French ships were in the worst condition ima- 
ginable, but our fleet did not avail itself of the opportunity for 
bringing them to action, and they reached their port without ex- 
changing a shot. How justifiable this was on our part I will 
not doubt, how disappointing it was even to Spain, whose wishes 
had by this time turned about, and how derogatory in her opinion 
to the credit of our arms, I can truly witness. 

I had now manoeuvred the Abbe Hussey into a mission, the 
most acceptable to him that could be devised, as it took him out 
of Spain, and liberated him from the necessity of acting a part, 
which he could not longer have sustained with any credit to him- 
self; for it was only whilst the treaty was in train with the sincere 
good will of Spain that he could be truly cordial in the cause: when 
unforeseen events occurred to check and interrupt the progress of 
it, his sagacity did not fail to discover that he could no longer pre- 
serve a middle interest with both parties, but must be hooked into 
a dilemma of choosing his side ; which that would have been when 
duplicity must have been thrown off, was a decision he did not wish 
to come to, though I perhaps can conjecture where it would have 
led him. He had no great prejudices for England ; Ireland was his 
native country, but even that and the whole world had been re- 
nounced by him, when he threw himself into the oblivious convent 
of La Trappe, and was only dragged from out his cell by force and 
the emancipating authority of the Pope himself. Whilst he was 
here digging his own grave, and consigning himself to perpetual 

taciturnity, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 359 

taciturnity, he was a very young man, high in blood, of athletic 
strength, and built as if to see a century to its end. It was not the 
enthusiasm of devotion, no holy raptures, that inspired him with 
this desperate resolution : it was the splenetic effect of disappointed 
passion ; and such was the change, which a short time had wrought 
in him, that father Robinson, the worthy priest, with whom he af- 
terwards cohabited, told me, that when he attended the order for 
his deliverance, he could hardly ascertain his person, especially as 
he persisted to asseverate in the strongest terms that he was not the 
man they were in search of. 

When he came forth again into the world with passions, rather 
suspended than subdued, I am inclined to think he considerd him- 
self as forced upon a scene of action, where he was to play his part 
with as much finesse and dissimulation as suited his interest, or 
furthered his ambition ; and this he probably reconciled to his con- 
science by a commodious kind of casuistry, in which he was a true 
adept. 

He wore upon his countenance a smile sufficiently seductive for 
common purposes and cursory acquaintance : his address was 
smooth, obsequious, studiously obliging, and at times glowingly 
heightened into an empassioned show of friendship and affection. 
He was quick enough in finding out the characters of men, and the 
openings through which they were assailable to flattery ; but he was 
not equally successful in his mode of tempering and applying it; 
for he was vain of showing his triumph over inferior understandings, 
and could not help colouring his attentions oftentimes with such a 

florid 



360 MEMOIRS OF 

florid hue, as gave an air of irony and ridicule, that did not always 
escape detection ; and thus it came to pass that he was little cre- 
dited (and perhaps even less than he deserved to be) for sincerity 
in his warmest professions, or politeness in his best attempts to 
please. 

As I am persuaded that he left behind him in his coffin at La 
Trappe no one passion, native or engrafted, that belonged to him 
when he entered it, ambition lost no hold upon his heart, and of 
course I must believe that the station, which he filled in Spain, and 
the high-sounding titles and dignities, which the favour of his Ca- 
tholic majesty might so readily endow him with, were to him such 
lures, as, though but feathers, outweighed English guineas in his 
balance; for of these I must do him the justice to say he was indig- 
nantly regardless ; but to the honours, that his church could give, 
to the mitre of Waterford, though merely titular, it is clear to de- 
monstration he had no repugnance. 

He made profession of a candour and liberality of sentiment, 
bordering almost upon downright protestantism, whilst in heart he 
was as high a priest as Thomas a Becket, and as stiff a catholic, 
though he ridiculed their mummeries, as ever kissed the cross. He 
did not exactly want to stir up petty insurrections in his native 
country of Ireland, but to head a revolution, that should overturn 
the church established, and enthrone himself primate in the cathe- 
dral of Armagh, would have been his brightest glory and supreme 
felicity : and in truth he was a man by talents, nerves, ambition, 
intrepidity, fitted for the boldest enterprise. 

After 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 86l 

After he had negociated my introduction into Spain, and set the 
treaty on foot, the very first check, which it received by the dis- 
turbances in London, left me very little hope of further help from 
him ; but when the prospect was darkened by accumulated clouds, 
and he discovered nothing through the gloom of my embarrassed 
situation but a tottering ministry, a discontented people, an un- 
quiet capital, our trading fleets captured, and our fighting fleets 
no longer worthy of the name ; when he saw Spain assume a proud 
and conquering attitude, and, (buoyed up by the promises of 
France) blockading Gibraltar and preparing for the actual siege of 
it, he began to perceive he had engaged himself in a most unpro- 
mising intrigue, and readily lent his ear to those, that were at 
hand and ready to intrigue him out of it. He was assiduous in his 
homage to the Archbishop of Toledo, and in the closest intimacy 
and communication with the minister of the Elector of Treves, and 
all at once, without the smallest cause of offence, or any reason 
that I could possibly divine, changed his behaviour as an inmate of 
my family, and from the warmest and most unreserved attachment, 
that man ever professed to man, took up a character of the severest 
gloom and sullenness, for which he would assign no cause, but to 
all my enquiries, all my remonstrances, was either obstinately si- 
lent, or evasively uncommunicative. He would stay no longer, he 
was resolved to demand his passports, and actually wrote to Del- 
Campo to that purpose. To this demand an answer was returned, 
refusing him the passports until he had leave from Lord Hillsbo- 
rough for quitting Spain, which it was at the same time observed 

3 a to 



S62 MEMOIRS OF 

to him could not be for his reputation to do in the depending state 
of the business, on which he came. Upon this he proceeded to 
write a short letter to Lord Hillsborough, demanding leave to 
return : he was not hardy enough to dispatch this letter without 
communicating it to me for my opinion : I gave it peremptorily 
against his sending it: I stated to him my reasons why I thought 
both the measure and the mode decidedly improper and disho- 
nourable; he grew extremely warm, and so intemperate, that I 
found it necessary to tell him, if he persisted in demanding his 
return of the secretary of state in those terms, that it would oblige 
me to write home in my own justification, and also to enter upon 
explanations with the Spanish Minister, who might else impute his 
conduct to a cabal Avith me, though it was so directly against my 
judgment and my wishes. I declared to him that I had not 
written a line, or taken a step without his privity, and that no one 
word had ever passed my lips, but what was dictated by sincere 
regard and consideration for him, and this was solemnly and strictly 
true : I said that I observed he had altered his behaviour towards 
me and my family, which he could not deny, and I added that 
this proceeding must not only ruin hini with the minister of Spain, 
but was such as must be highly prejudicial to my business, unless 
I took every prudent precaution to explain and avert the mischief 
it was pregnant with. The consequence of this conversation was, 
that he did not send his letter to Lord Hillsborough, but as he was 
not explicit on that point, I prepared myself with a letter to Lord 
Hillsborough, and another to Del-Campo, explanatory of his con- 
duct, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 36.3 

duct, which, upon his assuring me on our next meeting that lie 
would not write to England, I also forbore to send. Upon the 
following day, without any cause assigned or explanation given, 
my late sullen associate met me with a smiling countenance, and 
was as perfectly an altered man, as if he had come a second time 
out of the cloisters of La Trappe. He was in fact a most profound 
casuist, and a confessor of the highest celebrity. 

I cannot say this caprice of Mr. Hussey gave me much concern, 
or created in me any extraordinary surprise, though I could never 
thoroughly develope the cause of it ; yet at that very time my life 
was brought into imminent danger by the unskilfulness of the sur- 
geons, who attended upon me in consequence of my having received 
a very serious injury by a fall from one of my Portuguese mules. I 
was riding on the Pardo road, when the animal took fright, and in 
the act of stopping him the bitt broke asunder in his mouth. In 
this state, being under no command, he ran with violence against 
an equipage drawn by six mules that was passing along the road in 
a train with many others. In the concussion I came to the ground; 
the carriage fortunately stopped short, and I was lifted into it 
stunned with the shock and for a time insensible. I was bleeding 
at the elbow, where the skin was torn, and upon recovering my 
senses I found myself supported by my wife in her chariot, and 
probably indebted to her drivers for my life. Though I had cause 
to tremble for the consequences of the violent alarm I had given 
her, as she was now very near her time, yet in other respects it was 
a fortunate and extraordinary chance, that my accident should have 

3 a 2 thrown 



364 MEMOIRS OF 

thrown me immediately into her protection, who lost not an in- 
stant of time in conveying me home. Two surgeons, such as Ma- 
drid could furnish, were called in and speedily arrived, but for no 
other purpose, as it seemed, except to dispute and wrangle with 
each other upon the question if the arm was fractured at the shoul- 
der or at the elbow, whilst each alternately twisted and tortured 
it as best suited him in support of his opinion. In the height of 
their controversy a third personage made his appearance in the 
uniform of the Guardes de Corps, being chief surgeon of that 
corps and sent to me by authority. This gentleman silenced both, 
but agreed with neither, for he pronounced the bone to be split 
longitudinally from the shoulder to the elbow, and finding it by 
this time extremely swelled and inflamed, very properly observed 
that no operation could be performed upon it in that state. He 
proceeded therefore to bathe it liberally with an embrocation, 
which he affirmed was sovereign for the purpose, but if his object 
was to reduce the swelling and assuage the inflammation, the learn- 
ed gentleman was most egregiously mistaken, for the fiery spirit of 
the rum, with which he fomented it, soon increased both to so 
violent a degree with such a raging erysipelas as in a few days had 
every symptom of a mortification actually commencing, when the 
case being pressing, my wife, whose presence of mind never de- 
serted her in danger, took the prudent measure of dismissing the 
whole trio of ignoramuses, and calling to her assistance a modest 
rational practitioner in our near neighbourhood, who under the sign 
of a brass-bason professed the sister arts of shaving and surgery 

conjointly, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 



OUO 



conjointly, by reversing the practice so injurious and applying the 
bark, rescued me from their hands, and under Providence preserved 
my life. 

Here I must take leave to digress a little from the tenour of my 
tale, whilst I record an anecdote, in itself of no other material inte- 
rest except as it enables me to state one amongst the many reasons, 
which I have to love and revere the memory of a deceased friend, 
who devoted to me the evening of every day without the exception 
of one, which I passed during my residence in Madrid. This ex- 
cellent old man, Patrick Curtis by name, and by birth an Irish- 
man, had been above half a century settled in Spain, domestic 
priest and occasionally preceptor to three successive Dukes of 
Osuna. In this situation he had been expressly the founder of the 
fortunes of the Premier Florida Blanca, by recommending him as 
advocate to the employ and patronage of that rich and noble house. 
The Abbe Don Patricio Curtis was of course looked up to as a 
person of no small consideration; he was also not less conspicuous 
and universally respected for his virtues, for his high sense of ho- 
nour, his bold sincerity of speech and generous benignity of soul ; 
but this good man at the same time had such an over-abundant 
portion of the amor patriot about him, was so marked a devotee to 
the British interest and so unreserved an opponent to that of France, 
that it seemed to demand more circumspection than he was dis- 
posed to bestow for guarding himself against the resentment of a 
party, whose principles he arraigned without mitigation, and whose 
power he set at open defiance without caution or reserve. Though 

considerably 



366 MEMOIRS OF 

considerably past eighty, his affections were as ardent and his feel- 
ings as quick as if he had not reached his twentieth year. When I 
was supposed to be out of chance of recovery this affectionate 
creature came to me in an agony of grief to take his last farewell. 
He told me he had been engaged in fervent prayer and intercession 
on my behalf, and had pledged before the altar his most earnest 
and devoted services for the consolation and protection of my be- 
loved wife and daughters, if it should please Heaven to remove me 
from them and reject his humble supplications for my life : he la- 
mented that I had no spiritual assistant of my own church to resort 
to ; he did not mean to obtrude his forms, to which I was not ac- 
customed, but on the contrary came purposely to tender me his 
services according to my own ; and was ready, if I would furnish 
him with my prayer book, and allow him to secure the doors from 
any, that might intrude or over-hear to the peril of his life, to admi- 
nister the sacrament to me exactly as it is ordained by our church, 
requesting only that I would reach the cup with my own hand, and 
not employ his to tender it to me. All this he fulfilled, omitting 
none of the prayers appointed, and officiating in the most devout 
impressive manner, (though at times interrupted and overcome by 
extreme sensibility) to my very great comfort and satisfaction. Had 
the office of Inquisition, whose terrific mansion stood within a few 
paces of my gates, had report of this which passed in my heretical 
chamber, my poor friend would have breathed out the short rem- 
nant of his days between two walls, never to be heard of more. 
From six o'clock in the afternoon till ten at night he never failed to 

occupy 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. K,; 

occupy the chair next to me in my evening circle, and though 1 saw 
with infinite concern that his constitution was rapidly breaking up 
for the last six or seven weeks of my stay, no persuasion could keep 
him from coming to me and exposing his declining health to the 
night air; at last when I was recalled and had fixed the day for in y 
departure, dreading the effect, which the act of parting for ever 
might have upon his exhausted frame, I endeavoured to impose 
upon him a later hour of the morning than I meant to take for my 
setting out, and enjoined strict secresy to all my parly : but these 
precautions were in vain; at three o'clock in the morning, when I 
entered the receiving room I found my poor old friend alone and 
waiting, with his arms extended to embrace me and bathed in 
tears, scarcely able to support himself on his tottering legs, now 
miserably tumified, a spectacle that cut my heart to the quick, 
and perfectly unmanned me. He had purchased a number of 
masses of some pious mendicants, which he hoped Mould be effica- 
cious and avail for our well-doing : he had no great faith in amu- 
lets, he told me, yet he had brought me a ring of Mexican work- 
manship and materials, very ancient and consecrated and blessed 
by a venerable patriarch of the Indies, since canonized for his 
miracles; which ring had been highly prized by the late Duchess 
of Osuna for its efficacy in preserving her from thunder and light- 
ning, and though he did not presume to think that I would place 
the slightest confidence in its virtue, yet he hoped I would let him 
bestow it on the person of the infant daughter, which was born to 
me in Spain, whom I then gave into his arms, whilst he invoked a 

thousand 



368 MEMOIRS OF 

thousand blessings upon her. He brought a very fine crucifix cut in 
ivory; he said he had put up his last prayers before it, and had 
nothing more to do but lie down upon his bed and die, which as 
soon as I departed he was prepared to do, sensible that his last 
hour was near at hand, and that he should survive our separation 
a very few days. I prevailed with him to retain his crucifix, but I 
accepted an exquisite Ecce Homo by El Divino Morales, and ex- 
changed a token of remembrance with him ; I saw him led out of 
my house to that of the Duke of Osuna near at hand, and whilst I 
was yet on my journey the intelligence reached me of his death, 
and may the God of mercy receive him into bliss ! 

When I had so far advanced in my recovery as to be able to 
wear my arm in a sling, and endure the motion of a carriage, I 
dispatched my servant Camis to San Ildefonso, and proposed to 
the minister a conference with him there upon the supposed media- 
tion of Russia, on which he had thought fit to sound me. My ser- 
vant returned, bringing a letter from the sub-minister Campo, in 
which he signifies the minister's wish that I would consent to defer 
my visit, but adds that " If I think otherwise J shall always be 
" welcome — " I well knew to whom and to what I was indebted 
for this letter, and naturally was not pleased with it, yet I thought 

it best and most prudent to answer it as follows 

u To Senor Don Bernardo Del-Campo." 

" Dear Sir, 

" My servant returned with your letter of this day in 

" time to prevent my setting out for San Ildefonso. 

" When 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 369 

" When I tell you that it is with pleasure I accommodate my- 
" self to the wishes of Count Florida Blanca, I not only consult 
" my own disposition, but I am persuaded I conform to that of 
" my court, and of the minister, under whose immediate in- 
" structions I am acting. The reconciliation of our respective na- 
" tions is an object, which I look to with such cordial devotion, 
" that I would on no account interpose myself in a moment unac- 
" ceptable to your court for any consideration short of my inmie- 
" diate duty. I am persuaded there is that honour and good faitli 
" in the councils of Spain, and in the minister, who directs them, 
" that I shall not suffer in his esteem by this proof of my acquies- 
" cence, and I know too well the sincerity of my own court to ap- 
" prehend for the part I have taken. 

" At the same time that I signify to } T ou my acquiescence as 
" above stated, I think my predicament thereby becomes such as 
" to require an immediate report to my court, and I desire you will 
" request of his excellency Count Florida Blanca to send me a 
" blank passport, to be filled up by me with the name of such per- 
" son, as I may find convenient to dispatch to England by the way 
" of Lisbon. 

" I am, &c. &c. 

" R. C." 

This letter produced a most courteous invitation, and thence en- 
sued those conferences already described, which separated Mr. 
Ilussey from me, and sent him home with propositions, which my 
instructions did not allow me to discuss. By this chasm in the bu- 

3 b siness 



370 MEMOIRS OF 

siness I was upon, I found myself so far at leisure, that I was 
tempted to indulge my curiosity by a visit to the Escurial, and ac- 
cordingly set out for that singular place with a letter from the mi- 
nister to the Prior, signifying the king's pleasure that I should have 
free access to the manuscripts, and every facility, that could be 
given to my researches of whatever description. I had been inform- 
ed by Sir John Dalrymple of a curious manuscript, purporting to 
be letters of Brutus, to which he could not get access ; these letters 
are written in Greek, and are referred to by Doctor Bentley in his 
controversy with Boyle as notoriously spurious, fabricated by the 
sophists, of which there can be no doubt. I obtained a sight of the 
manuscript, and the fathers favoured me with a copy of the Greek 
original, and also of the Latin translation by Petrarch. I have them 
by me, but they are good for nothing, and bear decided evidence 
of an imposture. This the worthy father, who introduced himself to 
me as librarian and professor of the learned languages, discovered 
by a very curious process, observing to me that these could not be 
the true letters of Brutus, forasmuch as they profess to have been 
written after the death of Julius Caesar, which he had found out to 
be a flagrant anachronism, assuring me that Brutus, having died 
before Caesar, could not be feigned to have written letters after the 
decease of the man, who survived him. When I apologized for 
my hesitation in admitting his chronology, and asked him if Brutus 
was not suspected of having a hand in the murder of Caesar, he 
owned that he had heard of it, but that it was a mere fable, and 
hastening to his cell brought me down a huge folio of chronology, 

following 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 37 1 

following me into the court, and pointing out the page, where I 
might read my own conviction. I thanked him for his solicitude, 
and assured him that his authority was quite sufficient for the fact, 
and recollecting how few enjoyments he probably had in that lugu- 
brous mansion, left him in possession of his victory and triumph. 

I took no body with me to the Escurial but my servants and a 
Milanese traiteur, who opened an empty hotel, and provided me 
with a chamber and my food. There were indeed myriads of an- 
noying insects, who had kept uninterrupted possession of their 
quarters, against whom I had no way of guarding myself but by 
planting my portable crib in the middle of the room, with its legs 
immersed in pails of water. The court was expected, but not yet 
arrived, and the place was a perfect solitude, so that I had the best 
possible opportunity of viewing this immense edifice at my ease and 
leisure. I am not about to describe it ; assuredly it is one of the 
most wonderous monuments that bigotry has ever dedicated to the 
fulfilment of a vow. Yet there is no grace in the external, which 
owes its power of striking to the immensity of its mass : The archi- 
tect has been obliged to sacrifice beauty and proportion to security 
against the incredible hurricanes of wind, which at times sweep 
down from the mountains, that surround it ; of a scenery more sa- 
vage, nature hardly has a sample to produce upon the habitable 
globe: yet within this gloomy and enormous receptacle there is 
abundant food for curiosity in paintings, books and consecrated 
treasures exceeding all description. There is a vast and inestimable 
collection of pictures, and the great masters, whose works were in 

3 b 2 my 



372 MEMOIRS OF 

my poor judgment decidedly the most prominent and attractive, 
are Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Velasquez and Coello, of which the 
two last were natives of Spain and by no means unworthy to be 
classed with the three former. Of Raphael there are but four pre- 
eminent specimens, of which the famous Perla is one, but hung 
very disad van tageously : of Titian there is a splendid abundance; 
of Rubens not many, but some that shew him to have been a mighty 
master of the passions, and speak to the heart with incredible ef- 
fect; they throw the gauntlet to the proudest of the Italian schools, 
and seem to leave Vandyke behind him almost out of sight : of 
Velasquez, if there was none other than his composition of Jacob, 
when his sons are showing him the coat of Joseph, it would be 
enough to rank him with the highest in his art : Coello's fame may 
safely rest upon his inimitable altar-piece in the private chapel. 
Were it put to me to single out for my choice two compositions, and 
only two, from out the whole inestimable collection, I would take 
Titian's Last Supper in the refectory for my first prize, and this 
altar-piece of Coello's for my second, leaving the Perla and Madona 
del pesce of Raphael, the Dead Christ of Rubens, and the Joseph 
of Velasquez with longing and regret, but leaving them notwith- 
standing. 

The court removed from San Ildefonso to the Escurial in a few 
days after I had been there, and I was invited to bring my family 
thither, which accordingly I did. My reception here was very dif- 
ferent from what I had experienced at San Ildefonso. The king, 
one of the best tempered men living, was particularly gracious ; in 

walking 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 373 

walking through his apartments in the Escurial, I surprised him in 
his bed-chamber: the good man had been on his knees before his 
private altar, and upon the opening of the door, rose ; when seeing 
me in the act of retiring, he bade me stay, and condescended to 
show me some very curious South American deer, extremely small 
and elegantly formed, which he kept under a netting ; and amongst 
others a little green monkey, the most diminutive and most beau- 
tiful of its species I had ever seen. He also shewed me the game he 
had shot that morning of various sorts from the bocafica to the vul- 
ture. He was alone, and seemed to take peculiar pleasure in grati- 
fying our curiosity. No monarch could well be more humbly 
lodged, for his state consisted in a small camp-bed, miserably 
equipped with curtains of faded old damask, that had once been 
crimson, and a cushion of the same by his bedside with a table, that 
held his crucifix and prayer book, and over that a three-quarters 
picture of the Mater-dolorosa by Titian, which he always carried 
with him for his private altar-piece ; of which picture I was fortu- 
nate enough to procure a very perfect copy by an old Spanish mas- 
ter (Coello as I suspect) upon the same sized cloth, and very hardly 
to be distinguished from the original. This picture I brought home 
with me, and it is now in my possession. His majesty's dress was, 
like his person, plain and homely ; a buff leather waistcoat, breeches 
of the same, and old-fashioned boots, (made in Pall Mall) with a 
plain drab coat, covered with snuff and dust, a bad wig and a worse 
hat constituted his wardrobe for the chace, and there were very few 
days in the year, when he denied himself that recreation. 

The 



374 MEMOIRS OF 

The Prince of Asburias, now the reigning sovereign, was always 
so good as to notice the respect I duly paid him with the most 
flattering and marked attention. He spoke of me and to me with 
distinguished kindness, and caused it to be signified to me, that he 
was sorry circumstances of etiquette did not allow him to show me 
those more pointed proofs of his regard, by which it was his wish 
to make appear the good opinion he was pleased to entertain of 
me. Such a testimony from a prince of his reserved and distant 
cast of character was to be valued for its sincerity. On my way 
from San Ildefonso to Segovia one morning at an early hour, as I 
was mounting a hill, that opened that extensive plain to my view, 
I discovered a party of horsemen and the prince considerably ad- 
vanced before them at the full speed of his horse; I had just time 
to order my chariot out of the road, and halt it under some cork 
trees by the way-side, and according to my custom I got out to pay 
him my respects. The prince stopped his horse upon the instant, 
and with his hat in his hand wheeled him about to come up to me, 
when the high-spirited animal, either resenting the manoeuvre, or 
taking fright, as it seemed, at the gleamy reflection of my grey 
mules half-covered with the cork branches, reared and wheeled 
upon his hinder legs in a most alarming manner. The prince ap- 
peared to me in such imminent danger, that I was about to seize 
the bitt of his bridle, but he was much too complete a cavalier to 
accept of assistance, and after a short but pretty severe contest, 
brought his horse up to me in perfect discipline, and with many 
handsome acknowledgments for the anxiety I had shewn on his ac- 
count, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 375 

count, in a very gracious manner took his leave, and pursued his 
road to San Ildefonso: he was a man of vast bodily strength, and a 
severe rider ; the fine animal, one of the most beautiful I had seen 
in Spain, shewed the wounds of the spur streaming with blood 
down his glossy- white sides from the shoulder to the flank. 

This prince had a small but elegant pavilion at a short distance 
from the Escurial, which in point of furniture and pictures was a 
perfect gem : he did me and my family the honour to invite us to 
see it; at the appointed hour we found it prepared for our recep- 
tion, with a table set out and provided with refreshments ; some of 
the officers of his household were in waiting ; the dukes of Alva, 
Grenada, Almodovar and others of high rank accompanied us 
through the apartments, and when I returned to my hotel at the 
Escurial, the prince's secretary called on me by command to know 
my opinion of it. There could be no difficulty in delivering that, 
for it really merited all the praise that I bestowed upon it. In a 
very short time after, the same gentleman returned and signified 
the prince's express desire to know if there was any thing in the 
style of furniture, that struck me as defective, or any thing I could 
suggest for its improvement. With the like sincerity I made an- 
swer, that in my humble opinion the fitting of the principal room 
in the Chinese style, though sufficiently splendid, was not in cha- 
racter with the rest of the apartments, that were hung round with 
some of the finest pictures of the Spanish and Italian masters, where 
a chaster style in point of ornament had been preserved. 

I heard no more of my critique for some days, and began to 

suspect 



376 MEMOIRS OF 

suspect that I had made my court very ill by risquing it, when 
another message called me to review the complete change, which 
that apartment had undergone, to the exclusion of every atom of 
Japan work, in consequence of my remark. 

It was on this occasion that the minister Florida Blanca in the 
moment of that favour and popularity, which I then enjoyed, ad- 
dressed me in a very different style from any he had ever used, and 
with an air of mock solemnity charged me with having practised 
upon the heir apparent of the crown of Spain by some secret charm, 
or love-powder, to the engagement of his affections, " which," said 
he, " I perceive you are so exclusively possessed of, that I must 
" throw myself on your protection, and request you to preserve to 
" me some place in his regard — " As I had found his excellency 
for the first time in the humour for raillery, I endeavoured to keep 
up the spirit of it by owning to the love-powder ; in virtue of which 
I had gained that power over the prince, as to seize the bridle of his 
horse, and arrest him on the road, which led me to relate the anec- 
dote of our rencontre on the way to Segovia above-described. He 
listened to me with great good humour, appearing to enjoy my nar- 
rative of the adventure, and at the conclusion observed to me, that 
my life was forfeited by the laws of Spain; but as he supposed I 
had no evil design against the prince himself, but only wanted to 
possess myself of so fine a charger, as an offering to my excellent 
and royal master, whose virtues made his life and safety dear to all 
the world, he would in confidence disclose to me that order was 
given out by his Catholic Majesty to select from his stud in the 

Mancha 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. .377 

Mancha ten the noblest horses, that could be chosen, and out of 
those, upon trial of their steadiness and temper, to select two, 
which I might tender as my offering to the acceptance of my sove- 
reign ; and this he observed was a present never before made to any 
crowned head in Europe but of his majesty's own immediate family, 
alluding to the King of Naples. 

A few days after my return to Madrid this gracious promise was 
fulfilled, and two horses of the royal stud, led by the king's grooms 
and covered b} r cloths, on which the royal arms Sec. were embroi- 
dered, were brought into the inner court of my house, and there 
delivered to me. I flatter myself they were such horses, as had not 
been brought out of Spain for a century before, and not altogether 
unworthy of the acceptance of the illustrious personage, who conde- 
scended to receive them. I was at dinner when they arrived, and 
Count Kaunitz, the imperial ambassador, was at the table with me. 
I had not spoken to him, or any other person, of this expected pre- 
sent, and his astonishment at seeing that, which had been the great 
desideratum of many ambassadors, and himself amongst the num- 
ber, thus voluntarily and liberally bestowed upon me, (the secret 
and untitled agent of a court at war with Spain) surprised him into 
some comments, which had the only tincture of jealousy, that I 
ever discovered in him. A crowd had followed these horses to the 
gates, which enclosed my courts ; one of these opened to the Pla- 
zuela de los Affligidos, and the other to the street of the inquisi- 
tion ; I caused these gates to be thrown open, and when the people 
saw the horses with their royal coverings upon them led into my 

3 c stable, 



578 MEMOIRS OF 

stable, they gave a shout expressive of their pleasure and applause. 
If my very amiable friend Kaunitz was not quite so highly grati- 
fied by these occurrences as I was, he was perfectly excuseable. 

I kept these horses in my stables at Madrid, and should not 
have used them* but at the special requisition of the royal donor ; 
when that was signified to me, my daughters and myself rode them, 
as occasion suited, and as a proof how noble they were by nature, the 
following instance will suffice. As my eldest daughter was passing 
a small convent, not a mile from the gate of San Bernandino, a 
large Spanish mastiff of the wolf-dog kind rushed out of the con- 
vent, and seizing her horse by the breast, hung there by his teeth, 
whilst the tortured animal rushed onwards at full speed, showing no 
manner of vice, and only eager to shake off his troublesome encum- 
brance. In this situation she was perceived and rescued by a Spa- 
nish officer on foot, who presenting himself in the very line of the 
horse's course, gave him the word and signal to stop, when to my 
equal joy and astonishment (for I saw the action) the generous ani- 
mal obeyed, the dog dropped his hold, and the lady, still firm and 
unshaken in her seat, though alarmed and almost breathless, was 
seasonably set free by the happy presence of mind of her deliverer, 
and the very singular obedience of her royal steed, whose generous 
breast long retained the marks of his ignoble and ferocious as- 
sailant. 

When I had received my recall I sent these horses before me 
under the care of two Spaniards, father and son, of the name of 
Velasco, who led them from Madrid through Paris to Ostend, walk- 
ing 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 379 

ing on foot, and sleeping by them in their stables every night ; and 
taking their passage from Ostcnd to Margate, arrived with them at 
my door in Portland-Place, and delivered them without spot or ble- 
mish in perfect order and condition to his majesty's grooms at the 
royal Mews. 

If my gratitude to the memory of the late benevolent sovereign, 
who was pleased by this and many other favours graciously to mark 
the sincere, though, ineffectual, efforts of an humble individual, 
defeated in his hopes by unforeseen events, which he could not 
controul, and afterwards abandoned to distress and ruin by his em- 
ployers for want of that success, which he could not command ; if 
my gratitude (I repeat it) to the deceased King of Spain causes me 
to be too particular, or prolix, in recording his goodness to me, it 
is because I naturally must feel it with the greater sensibility from 
the contrast, which I painfully experienced, when I returned 
bankrupt, broken-hearted and scarce-alive to my native country. 
But of this more at large in its proper place. 

I have hinted at the surprise, which my friend Count Kaunitz 
expressed upon the present of the royal horses, it was again his 
chance to experience something of the like nature, when he did me 
the honour to dine with me upon the 4th of June, when with a few 
cordial friends I was celebrating my beloved sovereign's birth-day 
in the best maimer my obscurity and humble means allowed of. On 
this occasion I confess my surprise was as great as his, when the 
music of every regiment in garrison at Madrid, not excepting the 
Spanish guards, filed into my court-yard, and afforded me the ex- 

3 c 2 (|ii is ite 



380 MEMOIRS OF 

quisite delight of hearing those, who were in arms against my coun- 
try, unite in celebrating the return of that day, which gave its mo- 
narch birth. 

I frequently visited the superb collection of paintings in the pa- 
lace at Madrid ; the king was so good as to give orders for any pic- 
tures to be taken down and placed upon the eezel, which I might 
wish to have a nearer view of; he also gave direction for a cata- 
logue to be made out at my request, which I have published and 
attached to my account of the Spanish painters ; he authorised me 
to say, that if the king my master thought fit to send over English 
artists to copy any of the pictures in his collection, either for en- 
gravings or otherwise, he would give them all possible facility and 
maintain them at free cost, whilst they were so employed ; this I 
made known on my return. He gave direction to his architect 
Sabbatini to supply from the quarries in Spain any blocks or slabs 
of marble, according to the samples, which I brought over to the 
amount of above a hundred, whenever any such should be required 
for the building or ornamenting the royal palaces in England. 

I bear in my remembrance many other favours, which after what 
I have related are not necessary to enumerate. They were articles, 
to which his grace and goodness gave a value, and exactly such as 
I could with perfect consistency of character accept. The present 
of Viguna cloth from the royal manufactory, which he had given to 
the ambassador Lord Grantham, in the same proportion was be- 
stowed upon me. The superior properties of the Spanish pointer 
are well known, and dogs of the true breed are greatly coveted : the 

king 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 38J 

king understood I was searching after some of this sort, and was 
pleased to offer me the choice of any I might wish to have from out 
his whole collection ; but I had already possessed myself of two very 
fine ones, which his majesty saw, and thought them at least equal 
to any of his own ; I therefore thankfully acknowledged his kind 
offer, but did not avail myself of it. 

The Princess of Asturias, now reigning Queen of Spain, had 
taken an early opportunity of giving a private audience to my wife 
and daughters, and gratifying their curiosity with a sight of her 
jewels, most of which she described to be of English setting. She 
condescended to take a pattern of their riding habits, though they 
were copied from the uniform of our guards, and, when apprised 
of this, replied, that it was a further motive with her for adopting 
the fashion of it ; I remember however that she caused a broad gold 
lace to be carried round the bottom of the skirt. She also conde- 
scended to send for several other articles of their dress, as samples, 
whilst they were conforming to the costuma of Spain to the minutest 
particular, and wearing nothing but silks of Spanish fabric, reject- 
ing all the finery of Lyons, and every present or purchase, however 
tempting, of all French manufactures whatever. This lure for po- 
pularity succeeded to such a degree, that when these young Eng- 
lishwomen, habited in their Spanish dresses, (and attractive, as I 
may presume to say they were by the bloom and beauty of their 
persons) passed the streets of Madrid, their coach was brought to 
frequent stops, and hardly found its passage through the crowd. A 
Spanish lady, when she rides, occupies both sides of her pal fry, 

and 



382 MEMOIRS OF 

and is attended by her lacquies on foot, her horse in the mean time, 
move?is, sed noil promove?is i brandishing his legs, but advancing only 
by inches. When my wife and daughters on the contrary, who were 
all admirable riders, according to the English style and spirit, put 
their horses to their speed, it was a spectacle of such novelty, and 
oftentimes drew such acclamations, particularly from the Spanish 
guards whilst we were at the Escurial, as might have given rise to 
some sensations, if persisted in, which in good policy made it pru- 
dent for me to remand them to Madrid. 

Here I considered myself bound in duty to adapt my mode of 
life to the circumstances of my situation, and the undefined cha- 
racter, in which I stood. I was not restricted from receiving my 
friends, but I made no visits whatsoever, and the journal of any one 
day may serve for a description of the whole. The same circle as- 
sembled every afternoon at the same minute, and with the same 
regularity broke up. The ladies had a round table of low Pope- 
Joan, and I had a party of sitters-by. My house was extremely 
spacious, and that space by no means choaked up with furniture ; 
I had fourteen rooms on the principal floor, and but one fire place ; 
in this, during the winter months, I burnt pieces of wood, purchas- 
ed of a coach-maker, many of them carved and gilt, the relics of old 
carriages, and it was no uncommon thing to discover fragments of 
arms and breasts of Careatides, who had worn themselves out in the 
service of some departed Grandee, who had left them, like the 
wreck of Pharoah's chariots, to their disgraceful fate. I found my 
mansion in the naked dignity of brick floors and white walls ; upon 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 383 

the former I spread some matts, and on the other I pasted some paper. 
I farmed my dinners from a Milanese traiteur, exorbitantly dear 
and unpardonably bad ; but I had no resource : they came ready 
cooked to my house, and were heated up afresh in my stoves. The 
lacquies, that I hired, had two shillings per day, and dieted them- 
selves ; my expence in equipage was very great, for the mules ap- 
propriate to my town use could not go upon the road ; others were 
to be hired for posting, and less than six had been against all rule. 
I had a stable full of capital Spanish horses, exclusive of the king's, 
three of which were lent to me for the use of the ladies, and two 
given to me by Count Kaunitz ; one of these, a most beautiful crea- 
ture of the under-size, and a favourite of my wife's, I brought to 
England : the other was an aged horse, milk-white, the victor over 
nine bulls, and covered in his flanks and sides with honourable 
scars ; he had been devoted to the amphitheatre under suspicion of. 
having the glanders, but he outlived the imputation, and in the true 
character of the Spanish horse carried himself in the proudest style 
of any I ever saw, possessing the sweetest temper with the noblest 
spirit, and when in the possession of the great Grandee Altamira 
had been prized and admired above all other horses of his day. My 
eldest daughter seldom failed to prefer him, but, thinking him too 
old to undergo any great fatigue, I did not risk the bringing him to 
England, but returned him to the noble donor. 

This amiable personage, son to the Imperial Minister Count 
Kaunitz, had been ambassador to Russia, and was now filling that 
distinguished station at the court of Spain. When 1 had been but 

a few 



334 MEMOIRS OF 

a few days in Madrid, whilst I was in my box at the comedy with 
my wife and daughters, he asked leave to enter, and placed himself 
in a back seat: the drama, as far as I could understand it, seemed 
to be grounded on the story of Richardson's Pamela, and amongst 
the characters of the piece there was one, who meant to personate a 
British sea-captain. When this representative of my countryman 
made his entrance on the stage, Kaunitz, who perhaps discovered 
something in my countenance, which the ridiculous dress and ap- 
pearance of the actor very possibly excited, leaning forwards and 
addressing himself to me for the first time, said — " I hope, Sir, you 
" will overlook a small mistake in point of costuma, which this gen- 
" tleman has very naturally fallen into, as I am convinced he would 
" have been proud of presenting himself to you in his proper uni- 
*' form, could he have found amongst all his naval acquaintance any 
" one, who could have furnished him with a sample of it." This 
apology, at once so complimentary and ingenious, set off by his 
elegant manner of address, led us into conversation, and from that 
evening I can hardly call to mind one, in which he failed to honour 
me with his company. In his features he bore a striking resem- 
blance to the portrait, which he gave me of his father ; in his man- 
ners, which were those of a perfect gentleman, he was correctly 
fitted to the situation that he filled, and for that situation his talents, 
though not pre-eminently brilliant, were doubtless all-sufficient. He 
was not unconscious of those high pretensions to which his birth and 
station entitled him, but it was very rarely indeed that I could dis- 
cover any symptoms in his behaviour, that betokened other than a 

proper 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 

proper and becoming sensibility towards his honour and his office. 
With a constitution rather delicate, he possessed a heart extremely 
tender, and how truly and entirely that heart was devoted to the 
elder of my daughters, I doubt not but he severely felt, when frus- 
trated in his honourable and ardent wishes to be united to her, he 
aw her depart out of Spain, and after one day's journey in our 
company took his melancholy leave for ever ; for after the revolution 
of a few months, when it may be presumed he had conquered his 
attachment, and reconciled himself to his disappointment, this 
amiable young man, being then upon his departure for his native 
country, sickened and died at Barcelona. 

There were two other gentlemen of the imperial party, who very 
constantly were pleased to grace my evening circle ; the one Signer 
Giusti, an Italian, secretary of the embassy; the other General 
Count Pallavicini, a man not more ennobled by the splendor of 
his birth, than by the services he had performed, and the fame he 
had acquired. In the short war between Austria and Prussia, this 
gallant officer by a very brilliant coup-de-main had surprised a fortress 
and made prisoners the garrison, which covered him with glory and 
the favours of his sovereign : he was now making a military tour by 
command and at the charge of the Empress Queen, and came into 
Spain, consigned (as I may say) to Count Kaunitz, for the purpose 
of being passed into the Spanish lines, then investing Gibraltar. — 
Into this fortress he was anxiously solicitous to obtain admission, and 
when no accommodation could be granted to his wishes through the 

3 d influence 



386 MEMOIRS OF 

influence of Count Kaunitz, I gave him letters to Mr. Walpole, 
which he carried to him at Lisbon, and by a route, which that mi- 
nister pointed out, assisted by his and my introduction to General 
Elliot, succeeded in his wishes, and I believe no man entertained a 
higher respect for the brave defenders of that fortress, or a warmer 
sense of the gratifying indulgence, which they granted to him in so 
liberal a manner. Count Pallavicini was in the prime of life, of a 
noble air and high-born countenance ; tall, finely formed, gay, na- 
tural, open-hearted ; his spirit was alive in every feature ; it did not 
need the aid of suscitation ; no dress could hide the soldier, or 
disguise the gentleman. He had a happy flow of comic humour at 
command, unobtrusive however, and only resorted to at times and 
seasons ; of the suavity and pomposity of the Castilian character he 
seemed to have taken up a very contemptible impression, and would 
no otherwise fall in with any of their habits and customs, than 
for the purpose of ridiculing them by imitations designedly carica- 
tured. There are twenty ways of arranging the Spanish Capa; he 
never would be taught any one of them, though he underwent a 
lecture every night at parting, but in an one-and-twentieth way of 
his own hung it on his shoulders, and marched off most amusingly 
ridiculous. I think it never was my lot to make acquaintance with 
a man, for whom my heart more rapidly warmed into friendship, 
than it did towards this engaging gallant hero ; he continued to me 
his affectionate correspondence, till turning out against the Turks, 
and ever foremost in the field of glory, his head was sabred from 

his 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 387 

his body at a stroke, and he died, as he had lived, in the very arms 
of victory ; his ardent courage, though it turned the battle, did not 
serve him to ward off the blow. 

From this lamented friend, whose memory will be ever dear to 
me, I have now in my possession letters, written from Prague, 
where he had a separate command of eight thousand men, by which 
letters, though he could not prevail with either of my daughters (for 
he successively addressed himself to each) to change their country 
and forsake their parents and connexions, yet I trust he was assured 
and satisfied from the answers he received, that it was because 
they could not detach themselves from ties like these, and not be- 
cause they were insensible to his merits, when in their humble sta- 
tion they felt themselves compelled to reject those offers, that 
would have conferred honour on them, had they ranked amongst the 
highest. 

The Nuncio Colonna, cardinal elect, paid me some attentions, 
and the Venetian ambassador favoured me with his visits. The 
Saxon minister, Count Gerstoff, was frequently at our evening par- 
ties, and the Danish minister Count Reventlau seldom failed. The 
former of these was an animated lively man, and a most agreeable 
companion : Reventlau had been in a diplomatic character at the 
court of London, and had brought with him the language, manners 
and habitudes of an Englishman of the first fashion. His partiality 
to our native country created in me and my family a reciprocal 
partiality for him, and so interesting was this elegant young Dane 
in person, countenance and address, that the eve, which could have 

3 d 2 contemplated 



S88 MEMOIRS OF 

contemplated him with indifference, must have held no correspon- 
dence with the heart. We passed the whole evening before our 
departure with this engaging and affectionate friend ; the parting 
was to all most painful, but by one in particular more acutely felt 
than I will attempt to describe. Reventlau was one, and not the 
eldest of a very numerous and noble family : his father had been 
minister, but his hereditary property was by no means large, and 
the purity of his principle disdained the accumulation of any other 
advantages or rewards, than those, which attached themselves to 
his reputation, and were rigidly consistent with the character of a 
patriot. 

Colonel O'Moore of the Walloons, a very worthy and respect- 
able man, and Signor Nicolas Marchetti of the corps of Engineers, 
a Sicilian, were constant parties in our friendly circle. There were 
other Irish officers in the Spanish service, some Religious also of that 
nation, and some in the commercial line, who frequently resorted 
to me ; but to the generous and benevolent Marchetti in particular, 
who accompanied me through the whole of my disastrous journey 
from Madrid, by the way of Paris, I am beholden for the means 
that enabled me to reach my native country, as will appear here- 
after. 

Count Pietra Santa, lieutenant-colonel of the Italian band of 
body-guards, was my most dear and intimate friend ; by that name 
in its truest and most appropriate sense I must ever remember him, 
(for he is now no more) and though the days, that I passed with him 
in Spain did not out-number those of a single year, yet in every one 

of 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 339 

of these I had the happiness to enjoy so many hours of his society, 
that in his case, as in that of the good old Abbe Curtis, whilst we 
were but young in acquaintance, we might be fairly said to be old 
in friendship. It is ever matter of delight to me, when I can see 
the world disposed to pay tribute to those modest unassumino- cha- 
racters, who exact no tribute, but in plain and pure simplicity of 
heart recommend themselves to our affections, and borrow in a no- 
thing from the charms of wit, or the display of genius, exhibit 
virtue — in itself how lovely. Such was my deceased friend, a man, 
whom every body with unanimous assent denominated the good 
Pietra Santa, whom every body loved, for he that ran could read 
him, and who together with the truest courage of a soldier and the 
highest principles of honour combined such moral virtues with such 
gentle manners and so sweet a temper, that he seemed destined to 
give the rare example of a human creature, in whom no fault could 
be discovered. 

In this society I could not fail to pass my hours of relaxation 
very much to my satisfaction without resorting to public places or 
assemblies, in which species of amusement Madrid was very scan- 
tily provided, for there was but one theatre for plays, no opera, 
and a most unsocial gloom}' style of living seemed to characterise 
the whole body of the nobles and grandees. I was not often tempt- 
ed to the theatre, which was small, dark, ill-furnished, and ill-at- 
tended, yet when the celebrated tragic actress, known by the title 
of the Tiranna, played, it was a treat, which I should suppose no 
other stage then in Europe could compare with. That extraordi- 
nary 



390 MEMOIRS OF 

nary woman, whose real name I do not remember, and whose real 
origin cannot be traced, till it is settled from what particular nation 
or people we are to derive the outcast race of gipsies, was not less 
formed to strike beholders with the beauty and commanding ma- 
jesty of her person, than to astonish all that heard her by the 
powers, that nature and art had combined to give her. My friend 
Count Pietra Santa, who had honourable access to this great stage- 
heroine, intimated to her the very high expectation I had formed 
of her performances, and the eager desire I had to see her in one 
of her capital characters, telling her at the same time that I had 
been a writer for the stage in my own country : in consequence of 
this intimation she sent me word that I should have notice from 
her, when she wished me to come to the theatre, till when, she de- 
sired I would not present myself in my box upon any night, though 
her name might be in the bill, for it was only when she liked her 
part, and was in the humour to play well, that she wished me to be 
present. 

In obedience to her message I waited several days, and at last 
received the looked-for summons ; I had not been many minutes in 
the theatre before she sent a mandate to me to go home, for that 
she was in no disposition that evening for playing well, and should 
neither do justice to her own talents, nor to my expectations. I 
instantly obeyed this whimsical injunction, knowing it to be so per- 
fectly in character with the capricious humour of her tribe. When 
something more than a week had passed, I was again invited to the 
theatre, and permitted to sit out the whole representation. I had 

not 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 391 

not then enough of the language to understand much more than the 
incidents and action of the play, which was of the deepest cast of 
tragedy, for in the course of the plot she murdered her infant chil- 
dren, and exhibited them dead on the stage lying on each side of 
her, whilst she, sitting on the bare floor between them (her attitude, 
action, features, tones, defying all description) presented such a high- 
wrought picture of hysteric phrensy, laughing nild amidst severest 
woe, as placed her in my judgment at the very summit of her art ; 
in fact I have no conception that the powers of acting can be car- 
ried higher, and such was the effect upon the audience, that whilst 
the spectators in the pit, having caught a kind of sympathetic phrensy 
from the scene, were rising up in a tumultuous manner, the word 
was given out by authority for letting fall the curtain, and a catas- 
trophe, probably too strong for exhibition, was not allowed to be 
completed. 

A few minutes had passed, when this wonderful creature, led in 
by Pietra Santa, entered my box; the artificial paleness of her 
cheeks, her eyes, which she had dyed of a bright vermilion round 
the edges of the lids, her fine arms bare to the shoulders, the wild 
magnificence of her attire, and the profusion of her dishevelled 
locks, glossy black as the plumage of the raven, gave her the ap- 
pearance of something so more than human, such a Sybil, such an 
imaginary being, so awful, so impressive, that my blood chilled as 
she approached me not to ask but to claim my applause, demand- 
ing of me if I had ever seen any actress, that could be compared 
with her in my own, or any other, country. "I was determined," 

she 



392 MEMOIRS OF 

she said, " to exert myself for you this night; and if the sensibility 
" of the audience would have suffered me to have concluded the 
" scene, I should have convinced you that I do not boast of my 
" own performances without reason." 

The allowances, which the Spanish theatre could afford to make 
to its performers, were so very moderate, that I should doubt if the 
whole year's salary of the Tiranna would have more than paid for 
the magnificent dress, in which she then appeared ; but this and all 
other charges appertaining to her establishment were defrayed from 
the coffers of the Duke of Osuna, a grandee of the first class and 
commander of the Spanish Guards. This noble person found it 
indispensably necessary for his honour to have the finest woman in 
Spain upon his pension, but by no means necessary to be acquaint- 
ed with her, and at the very time, of which I am now speaking, 
Pietra Santa seriously assured me, that his excellency had indeed 
paid large sums to her order, but had never once visited, or even 
seen her. He told me at the same time that he had very lately 
taken upon himself to remonstrate upon this want of curiosity, and 
having suggested to his excellency how possible it was for him to 
order his equipage to the door, and permit him to introduce him to 
this fair creature, whom he knew only by report and the bills she 
had drawn upon his treasurer, the duke graciously consented to 
my friend's proposal, and actually set out with him for the gallant 
purpose of taking a cup of chocolate with his hitherto invisible 
mistress, who had notice given her of the intended visit. The dis- 
tance from the house of the grandee to the apartments of the gipsy 

was 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 393 

was not great, but the lulling motion of the huge state-coach, and 
the softness of the velvet cushions had rocked his excellency into so 
sound a nap, that when his equipage stopped at the lady's door, 
there was not one of his retinue bold enough to undertake the invi- 
dious task of troubling his repose. The consequence was, that after 
a proper time was passed upon the halt for this brave commander 
to have waked, had nature so ordained it, the coach wheeled round 
and his excellency having slept away his curiosity, had not at the 
time Avhen I left Madrid ever cast his eyes upon the person of the 
incomparable Tiranna. I take for granted my friend Pietra Santa 
drank the chocolate, and his excellency enjoyed the nap. I will 
only add in confirmation of my anecdote, that the good Abbe 
Curtis, who had the honour of having educated this illustrious 
sleeper, verified the fact. 

When Count Pallavicini left Madrid and went to Lisbon in the 
hope of getting into Gibraltar through the introduction, that I gave 
him to the minister Mr. Walpole and others of my correspondents 
in that city, I availed myself of that opportunity for conveying my 
dispatches of the 12th of December 1780 to the Secretary of State 
Lord Hillsborough. They embraced much matter and very many 
particulars, interesting at that time, but now so long since gone by, 
that the insertion of them here could answer no purpose but to set 
forth my own unwearied assiduity, and good fortune in procuring 
intelligence, which in the event proved perfectly correct. On the 
3d of the month following, viz. January 1781, I inform Lord Hills- 
borough, that "having found means to obtain copies of some state 



3 e papers 



394 MEMOIRS OF 

" papers, the authenticity of which may be relied upon, I have the 
" honour to transmit them to your lordship by express to Lisbon — " 
These were all actual dispatches of the minister Florida Blanca, 
secret and confidential, to the Spanish envoy at the court of Pe- 
tersburgh, and developed an intrigue, of which it was highly im- 
portant that my court should be apprised. This project it was my 
happy chance to lay open and defeat by the acquisition of these 
papers through the agency of one of the ablest and most efficient 
men, that-eyer was concerned in business of a secret nature : had 
my corresponding minister listened to the recommendation I gave 
of this gentleman, I could have taken him entirely into the pay and 
service of my court, and the advantages to be derived from a person 
of his talents and address were incalculable. He served me faith- 
fully and effectually on this, and some other occasions, and it was 
not without the most sensible regret I found myself constrained to 
leave him behind me. 

When I had sent my faithful servant Camis express with this 
important dispatch, I received the following letter from the Earl of 

Hillsborough 

" St. James's 9th December 1?80. 
" Sir, 

" I have duly received your letters from No. 7 to 
" No. 12 inclusive, and laid them before the king. The last num- 
" ber was delivered to me by Mr. Hussey. That gentleman has 
" communicated to me the purport of Count Florida Blanca's con- 
" versation with him, for which purpose alone he appears to me to 

" have 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 395 

" have returned to London. The introduction of Gibraltar and 
" the American rebellion into that conversation, convinces me that 
" there is no intention in the court of Spain to make a separate 
" treaty of peace with us. I do not however as yet signify to you the 
" kings command for your return, though I see little utility in your re- 
" maining at Madrid. 

" If you should obtain any further intelligence concerning the 
" mediation, which you informed me you understood had been pro- 
" posed by the Empress ot Russia, I desire you will acquaint me 
" with it. 

" Mr. Hussey undertakes to deliver this letter to you. I have 
" nothing further to add, but to repeat to you, that the king expects 
" from you the strictest adherence to your instructions, without any 
" deviation whatsoever during the remainder of the time you shall 
" continue at Madrid. 

" I am, with great truth and regard, 
" Sir, 

" Your most obedient 
Mr. Cumberland. " Humble servant, 

(Signed) " Hillsborough. 

This was sufficient authority for me to believe that my mission 
was fast approaching to its conclusion, and I prepared myself ac- 
cordingly. In the mean time Mr. Hussey, who undertook to deliver 
this letter to me, was stopped at Lisbon and not permitted to con- 
tinue his journey into Spain ; for in fact the train, which my mi- 
nister had now contrived to throw the negociatioD into, was not ac- 

3 e 2 ceptable 



396 MEMOIRS OF 

ceptable to the Spanish court, and the rigour, with which I was 
enjoined to adhere to my instructions, operated so effectually 
against the several overtures, which were repeatedly made to me on 
the part of Florida Blanca, that I must ever believe the negociation 
was lost on our part by transferring it to one, with whom Spain was 
not inclined to treat, and tying up my hands, with whom there 
seemed every disposition to agree. In fact we parted merely on a 
punctilio, which might have been qualified between us with the 
most consummate ease ; they wanted only to talk about Gibraltar, 
and I was not permitted to hear it named ; the most nugatory article 
would have satisfied them, and if I had dared to have given in 
writing to the Spanish minister the salvo, that I suggested in con- 
versation after my receiving the letter above referred to, I have 
every reason to be confident that the business would have been con- 
cluded, and the object of a separate treaty accomplished without 
any other sacrifice than that of a little address and accommodation 
in the matter of a mere punctilio. 

When some conferences had passed, in which, fettered as I 
was by my instructions, I found it impossible to put life into our 
expiring negociation, favoured though I was by the court and 
minister to the last moment of my stay, I wrote to Lord Hillsbo- 
rough as follows — 

" Madrid January 18th 1781. 
" No. 19. My Lord, 

" In consequence of a letter, which Mr. Hussey 
" will receive by this conveyance from Count Florida Blanca, I am 

" to 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 397 

" to conclude, that he will immediately return to England, without 
" coming to this court. In the copy of this letter, which his excel- 
" lency has communicated to me, he remarks, that, in case the nc- 
" gociation shall break off upon the answer now given, my longer 
" residence at Madrid will become unnecessary : and as I am pcr- 
" suaded that your lordship and the cabinet will agree with the mi- 
" nister of Spain in this observation, I shall put myself in readiness 
" to obey his majesty's recall. In the mean time I beg leave to re- 
" peat to your lordship, that I shall strictly adhere to his majesty's 
" commands, trusting that you will have the goodness to represent 
" to his majesty my faithful zeal and devotion, how ineffectual 
" soever they may have been, in the fairest light. 

" Understanding that the king had been pleased to accept from 
" the late Prince Masscrano a Spanish horse, which was in great 
" favour, and hoping that it might be acceptable to his majesty, if 
" occasion offered of supplying his stables with another of the like 
" quality, I desired permission of the minister to take out of Spain a 
" horse, which I had in my eye, and his excellency having rcport- 
" ed this my desire to the King of Spain, his Catholic Majesty was 
" so good as to give immediate direction for twelve of the best 
" horses in Andalusia of his breed of royal Caribaneers to be draft- 
" ed out, and from these two of the noblest and steadiest to be se- 
" lected, and given to me for the above purpose. I have accord- 
" ingly received them, and as they fully answer my expectations 
" both in shape and quality, and are superior to any I have seen 
" in this kingdom, I hope they will be approved of by his majesty, 

" if 



398 MEMOIRS OF 

" if they are fortunate in a safe passage, and shall arrive in London 
" without any accident. 

Don Miguel Louis de Portugal, ambassador from her most 
" faithful majesty to this court, died a few days ago of a tedious 
" and painful decay. The Infanta of Spain is sufficiently reco- 
" vered to remove from Madrid to the Pardo, where the court now 
" resides. 

" I have the honour to be, &c. &e. 

" R. C." 

Whilst the court was at the Pardo, a complaint, founded on the 
grossest misrepresentations, was started and enforced upon me by 
the minister respecting the alledged ill treatment of the Spanish 
prisoners of war in England. I traced this complaint to the reports 
of a certain Captain Nunez, then on his parole and lately come 
from England ; with this gentleman there came a nephew of my 
friend the Abbe Curtis, who had been chaplain on board Captain 
Nunez's frigate, when she was taken, and who was now liberated, 
having brought over with him a complete copy of the minutes of 
parliament, in which the matter in complaint was fully and com- 
pletely enquired into, and the allegations in question confuted upon 
the clearest evidence, Captain Nunez himself being present at the 
examination, and testifying his satisfaction and entire conviction 
upon the result of it. These documents the worthy nephew of my 
friend very honourably put into my hands, and, armed with these, 
I proved to the court of Spain, that, upon a sickness breaking out 
amongst the Spanish prisoners from their own uncleanliness and 

neglect, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 399 

neglect, our government, with a benevolence peculiar to the British 
character, had made exertions wholly out of course, furnishing thera 
with entire new bedding at a great cxpencc, supplying them with 
medicines and all things needful, whilst in attendance on the dis- 
eased more than twenty surgeons (I speak from memory, and I be- 
lieve I am correct) had sacrificed their lives. If in the refutation of 
a charge so grossly unjust and injurious as this, I lost my patience 
and for a short time forgot the management befitting my peculiar 
situation, I can truly say it was the only error I committed of that 
sort, though it was by no means the only instance that occurred to 
provoke me to it, as the following anecdote will demonstrate. 

There was a young man, by name Antony Smith, a native of 
London, living at Madrid upon a small allowance, paid to him 
upon the decease of his father, who had been watch-maker to the 
King of Spain. I took this young man into my family upon the 
recommendation of the Abbe Curtis, and employed him in tran- 
scribing papers, arranging accounts and other small affairs, in which 
his knowledge of the language rendered him very useful. One day 
about noon the criminal judge with his attendants walked into my 
house, and seizing the person of this young man took him to prison, 
and shut him up in a solitary cell without assigning any cause for 
the proceeding, or stating any crime, of which he was suspected, 
I took the course natural for me to take, and from the effect, which 
my remonstrance and appeal to the minister instantly produced, I 
had no reason to think him privy to the transaction, for late in the 
evening of the next day Antony Smith was brought to my gates by 

tin 



400 MEMOIRS OF 

the officers of justice, from whom I would not receive him, but sent 
him back till the day following, when I required him to be deliver- 
ed to me at the same hour and in the same public manner as they 
had chosen to take him from me, and further insisted that the same 
criminal judge with his attendants should be present at the surrender 
of their prisoner. All this was exactly complied with, and the 
foolish magistrate was hooted at by the populace in the most con- 
temptuous manner. It seemed that this wise judge was in search 
of an assassin, who was described as an old black-complexioned 
fellow with a lame foot, whereas Smith was a very fair young man 
with red hair, and perfectly sound and active on his legs. What 
were the motives for this wanton act of cruelty I never could dico- 
ver ; I brought him with me to England, but the terrors he had suf- 
fered during his short but dismal confinement haunted him through 
every stage of his journey, till we passed the frontiers of Spain. 
When we arrived in London I recommended him to my friend Lord 
Rodney as Spanish clerk on board his flag ship, but poor Smith's 
spirit was so broken, that he declined the service, and found a more 
peaceful occupation in a merchant's counting-house. 

I was now in daily expectation of my recal, and as my own im- 
mediate negociation was shifted for a time into other hands, I 
availed myself of those means, which by my particular connexions 
I was possessed of, for collecting such a body of useful information, 
as might safely be depended upon, and this I transmitted to my 
corresponding minister in my dispatches No. 20 of the 31st of 
January, and No. 21 of the 3d of February 1781. I had now no 

longer 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 401 

longer any hope of bringing Spain into a separate treaty, whilst my 
court continued to receive overtures, and return answers, through 
the channel of Mr. Hussey then at Lisbon, and Florida Blanca 
having imparted to me a dispatch, which he affected to call his 
ultimatum, I plainly saw extinction to the treaty upon the face of 
that paper, for he would still persist in the delusive notion, that he 
could insinuate articles and stipulations for Gibraltar in his commu- 
nications through Mr. Hussey, though I by my instructions could 
not pass a single proposition, in which it might be named. "When 
he had written this letter, which he called his ultimatum, it seems 
to have occurred to him to communicate it to me rather too late 
for any good purpose, inasmuch as he had taken His Catholic ma- 
jesty's pleasure upon it, and made it a state paper, before he put it 
into my hands. He nevertheless was earnest with me to give him 
my opinion of it, and I did not hold myself in any respect bound to 
disguise from him what I thought of it, neither did I scruple to 
suggest to him the idea, which I had formed in m}' mind, of an ex- 
pedient, that might have conciliated both parties, and would at all 
events have obviated those consequences, to which his unqualified 
requisition could not fail to lead. It will suffice to say that he can- 
didly declared his readiness to adopt my idea, and form his letter 
anew in conformity to it, if he had not, by laying it before the 
King, made it a state paper, and put it out of his power to alter and 
new-model it, without a second reference to the royal pleasure. 
This however he was perfectly disposed to do, provided I would 
give him my suggestions in writing, as a produceable authority for 

3 f reconsidering 



402 MEMOIRS OF 

reconsidering the question. Here my instructions stood so irre- 
moveably in my way, that, although he tendered me his honour that 
my interference should be kept secret, I did not venture to com- 
mit myself, nor could he be brought to consider conversation as 
authority. 

Upon the failure of this my last effort I regarded the negocia- 
tion as lost, and, reflecting upon what had passed in the conference 
above referred to, when I had finished my letter No. 20 of the 
31st of January 1781, 1 attached to it the following paragraph, viz. — 

" Since Count Florida Blanca dispatched his express to Lisbon 
" I have not heard from Mr. Hussey, neither do I know any thing of 
" his commission, but what Count Florida Blanca's answer opens 
" to me, and as I must believe that in great part a finesse, I can- 
" not but lament, that it had not been prepared by discussion — " 

As the court of Spain was now become the centre of some very 
interesting and important intrigues, by which she was attempting to 
impose the project of a general pacification under the pretended 
mediation of Russia only, and to substitute this project in the place 
of the separate and exclusive treaty, now on the point of dissolu- 
tion, I felt myself justified in taking every measure, which my judg- 
ment dictated, and my connexions gave me opportunity to pursue, 
for bringing that event to pass, of which I apprize Lord Hillsbo- 
rough in the following paragraph of my letter No. 20 — viz. — 

" An express from Vienna brought to Count Kaunitz in the 
" evening of the 27th instant the important particulars relative to 
" the mediation of his imperial majesty jointly with the Empress of 

" Russia 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 403 

" Russia. This court being at the Pardo, the Afnbassador Kaunitz 
" took the next day for communicating with Count Florida Blanca, 
" and yesterday a courier arrived from Paris with the instructions of 
" that court to Count Montmorin on the subject. 

" When the minister of Spain shall deliver the sentiments of His 
" Catholic majesty to the imperial ambassador, which will take 
" place on the day after to-morrow, they will probably be found 
" conformable to those of France, of which I find Count Kaunitz is 
" already possest. I shall think it my duty to apprize your lord- 
" ship of any particulars, that may come to my knowledge, proper 
" for your information — ." 

In my letter No. 21 of the 3d of February, I acquaint Lord 
Hillsborough that " the answer of Spain to the proposition of the 
" Emperor's mediation was made on the day mentioned in my letter 
" No. 20, and as I then believed it would conform to that of 
" France, so in effect it happened, with this further circumstance, 
" that in future reference is to be made to the Spanish ambassador 
" at Paris, who in concert with the minister of France is to sponk 
" for his court, being instructed in all cases for that purpose." 

Upon this arrangement I observe that it is made — " As well to 
" sooth the jealousy of the French court, who in their answer 
" glanced at the separate negociation here carrying on with 
" Great Britain, as for other obvious reasons — " In speaking of the 
Emperor's proposed mediation I explain the reasons that prevailed 
with me for expressing my wishes in a letter No. 8 of the 4th of 
August — "That the good offices of the imperial court might main- 

3 f 2 tain 



404 MEMOIRS OF 

" tain their precedency before those of any other, and that I am 
" well assured it was owing to the knowledge Russia had of these 
" overtures made by the imperial court, that she put her proposi- 
" tions to the belligerent powers in terms so guarded and so general, 
" as should not awaken any jealousy in the first proponent," and I 
add, " that I know the instructions of Monsieur de Zinowieff, the 
" Russian ambassador, to have been so precise on this head, so far 
" removed from all idea of the formal overture pretended by the 
" Spanish minister, that I think he would hardly have been induced 
" to deliver in any writing, as Monsieur Simolin did in London, 
" although it had been so desired." 

I shall obtrude upon my readers only one more extract from this 
letter, in which — " I beg leave to add a word in explanation of what 
" I observe at the conclusion of my letter No. 20, touching the 
" answer made to Mr. Hussey, viz. that it were to be wished it had 
" been preceded by a discussion — this I said, my Lord, because the 
" answer was no sooner settled and given to the King, than a dispo- 
" sition evidently took place to have reconsidered and modified the 
" stipulation for Gibraltar, now so glaringly inadmissible; but this 
" and every other observation touching our negociation, traversed 
" by so many unforeseen events, will for the future, as I hope, find 
" its course in a more general and successful channel — ." 

I make no other comment upon the good or ill policy of laying 
me under those restrictions, but that I could else have prevented 
the transmission of that article, which gave the death-blow to my 
negociation. 

For 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 405 

For this I was prepared, and after the revolution of a few days 
received his majesty's recal, communicated to me in the following 
letter — 

" St. James's 14th February 1781. 
" Sir, 

" I am sorry to find from your last letter No. 19, and from 
" that written from Count de Florida Blanca to Mr. Hussey, which 
" the latter received at Lisbon, that an entire stop is put to the 
" pleasing expectation, which had been formed from your resi- 
" dence in Spain. Had I been as well informed of the intentions 
" of the court of Madrid, when you went abroad, as I now am, you 
" would certainly not have had the trouble and fatigue of so long a 
" voyage and journey. 

" There remains nothing now for me but to acquaint you, that I 
" am commanded by the king to signify to you His majesty's plea- 
" sure, that you do immediately return to England : when I say 
" immediately, it is not intended that your departure should have 
the appearance of resentment, or that you should be deprived of 
" the opportunity of expressing a just sense of the marks of civility 
" and attention, which Mr. Cumberland has received since his ar- 
" rival in Madrid. 

" I am, with great truth and regard, 
" Sir, 

" Your most obedient 

" Humble servant, 
(Signed) " Hillsborough." 

I had 



a 



406 MEMOIRS OF 

I had now his majesty's commands, signified to me as above, for 
my return to England, and his lordship's interpretation of them to 
direct my behaviour in avoiding all appearance of resentment, which 
I did not feel, and expressing that sense of gratitude, which I did 
feel, for the many marks of civility and attention, which I had re- 
ceived in the person of Mr. Cumberland, since his arrival in Madrid. 
To these excellent rules of conduct I was prepared to pay the most 
correct and cheerful obedience. 

For the favour of his lordship's information, that he would have 
spared me the trouble and fatigue of my long journey, if he had 
been aware that there was no occasion for my taking it, I could not 
but be duly thankful, and I am most sincerely sorry that nobody 
could be found with prescience to inform his lordship what the 
intentions of the court of Madrid would be for a whole year to come, 
nor to apprize me what my recompense would be upon the expira- 
tion of it. - If such inspiration had been vouchsafed to both, I 
think I can guess, who would have been the greater gainer of the 
two. 

Had any kind good-natured incendiary been so confidential as 
to have told me, that it was his intention to set fire to London as 
soon as I was well out of it; or had Count Florida Blanca had the 
candour to have premised, that his invitation of me into Spain had 
no other object in view, but to give me the amusement of a tour, 
and himself the pleasure- of my company, it would perhaps have 
been very flattering to my vanity, but I don't think it would have 
suited my principle to have passed it off for a negociation, and I 

am 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 407 

am quite convinced it would not have suited my finances to have 
paid his excellency the visit, and sacrificed my torture to the amuse- 
ment of it. 

It certainly would be extremely convenient, if we could always 
see to the end of an experiment before we undertake it. I could 
not see to the end of the riots in London, when they were reported 
to be so terrible, yet I predicted as truly as if I had foreseen it, 
and was reprimanded notwithstanding ; if then I acted wrong by 
guessing right at the only favourable occurrence, that happened 
whilst I was in Spain, how should I have escaped a severer reproof 
if I had been as successful in foretelling the many evil occcurrences 
of that^disastrous year, during the whole course of which I kept 
alive a treaty, which was never lost till it was taken out of my 
hands ? 

If here I seem to speak too vainly of my unsuccessful services, I 
have to appeal to the testimony of that great and able minister 
Prince Kaunitz, who together with his tender of the mediation of 
the imperial court, communicated to the British cabinet, suggests 
a wish, that I may be included in the commission, if such shall be 
appointed, at the general congress ; and is pleased to give for his 
reason, the favourable impressions, which his correspondence with 
Spain had given him, of my conduct there in carrying on a very 
arduous business, which many circumstances contributed to em- 
barrass. — This I should never have had the gratification to know, 
had it not been communicated to me by a friend after my return to 
England, who, concluding I had been informed of it, was com- 
plimenting 



403 - MEMOIRS OF 

plimenting me upon it. Thus I went abroad to find friendship and 
protection, and came home to meet injustice and oppression. 

If the following fact, which is correctly true, and which I now 
for the first time make public, shall prove that those, whom I could 
not put at peace with my country, were yet at perfect peace with 
me, I hope I shall not be suspected of having overstrained the pri- 
vilege allowed me by my letter of recal, and carried my complai- 
sance too far upon my farewell visit to the Spanish minister at the 
Pardo. I certainly harboured no resentment in my heart, and hav- 
ing free leave to avoid the appearance of it, had no object but to 
express as well as I was able the grateful sense I entertained of the 
many favours, which the King and court of Spain had condescend- 
ed to bestow upon me and mine. In replying to these acknow- 
ledgments, so justly due, Count Florida Blanca, assuming an air of 
more than ordinary gravity, and delivering himself slowly and dis- 
tinctly, as one, who wishes that a word should not be lost, address- 
ed the following speech to me, which according to my invariable 
practice I wrote down and rendered into English in my entry book, 
whilst it was yet fresh in my memory ; and from that record I have 
transcribed not only this, but every other speech, that I have given 
as authentic in these Memoirs 

" Sir, the King my Sovereign has been entirely satisfied with 
" every part of your conduct during the time you have resided 
" amongst us. His majesty is convinced that you have done your 
" duty to your own court, and exerted yourself with sincere good 
" will to promote that pacification, which circumstances out of 

your 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 40.9 

" your reach to foresee, or to controul, seem for the present to have 
" suspended. And now, Sir, you will be pleased to take in good 
" part what I have to say to you with regard to your claims for in- 
" demnification on the score of your expences, in which I have 
" reason to apprehend you will find yourself abandoned and de- 
" ceived by your employers. I have it therefore in command to 
" tell you, that the King my Sovereign has taken this into his gra- 
" cious consideration, and tenders to you through me full and am- 
" pie compensation for all expences, which you have incurred by 
" your coming into Spain ; being unwilling that a gentleman, who 
" has resorted to his court, and put himself under his immediate 
" protection, without a public character, honestly endeavouring to 
" promote the mutual good and benefit of both countries, should 
" suffer, as you surely will do, if you withstand the offer, which I 
" have noAv the honour to make known to you — ." 

What I said in answer to this generous, but inadmissible, offer 
I shall make no parade of; it is enough to say that I did not accept 
a single dollar from the King of Spain, or any in authority under 
him, which, as far as a negative can be proved, was made clear, 
when upon my journey homewards my bills were stopped, and my 
credit so completely bankrupt, that I might have gone to prison at 
Bayonne, if I had not borrowed five hundred pounds of mv friendly 
fellow-traveller Marchetti, which enabled me to pay my way through 
France and reach my own country. 

How it came to pass that my circumstances should be so well 
known to Count Florida Blanca is easily accounted for, when the 

3 g dishonouring 



410 MEMOIRS OF 

dishonouring of my bills by Mr. Devisme at Lisbon, through whose 
hands the Spanish banker passed them, was notorious to more than 
half Madrid, and could not be unknown to the minister. The fact 
is, that I had come into Spain without any other security than the 
good faith of government upon promise, pledged to me through 
Mr. Robinson, secretary of the treasury, that all bills drawn by me 
upon my banker in Pall Mall, should be instantly replaced to my 
credit, upon my accompanying them with a letter of advice to the 
said secretary Robinson. This letter of advice I regularly attached 
to every draft I made upon Messrs. Crofts, Devaynes and Co. but 
from the day that I left London to the day that I returned to it, in- 
cluding a period of fourteen months, not a single shilling was re- 
placed to my account with my bankers, who persisted in advancing 
to my occasions with a liberality and confidence in my honour, that 
I must ever reflect upon with the warmest gratitude. If I was im- 
provident in relying upon these assurances, they, who made them, 
were inexcusable in breaking them, and betraying me into unme- 
rited distress. I solemnly aver that I had the positive pledge of Trea- 
sury through Mr. Robinson for replacing every draft I should make 
upon my banker, and a very large sum was named, as applicable 
at my discretion, if the service should require it. I could explain 
this further, but I forbear. I had one thousand pounds advanced 
to me upon setting out; my private credit supplied every farthing 
beyond that ; for the truth of which I need only to refer the reader 

to the following letter 

"To 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. - 411 

" To John Robinson Esquire &c. 

" Madrid 8th of March 1781. 
" Sir, 

" My banker informs me of a difficulty, which has arisen in 
" replacing the bills, which I have had occasion to draw upon him 
" for the expences of my commission at this court. 

" As I have not had the honour of hearing from you on this sub- 
" ject, and as it does not appear that he had seen you, when he 
" wrote to me, the alarm, which such an event would else have 
" given me, is mitigated by this consideration, as I am sure there 
" can be no intention in government to disgrace me at this court in 
" a commission, undertaken on my part without any other stipula- 
" tion than that of defraying my expences. I flatter myself there- 
" fore that you have before this done what is needful in conformity 
" to what was settled on our parting. Suffer me to add, that by 
" the partition I have made of my office with the gentleman, who 
" executes it, by the expences preparatory to my journey, all which 
" I took on myself, and by many others since my departure, which 
" I have not thought proper to put to the public account, I have 
" greatly burdened my private affairs during my attendance on the 
" business I am engaged in. 

" That I have regulated my family here for the space of near a 
'* twelvemonth with all possible oeconomy upon a scale in every 
" respect as private, and void of ostentation, as possible, is noto- 
" rious to all who know me here; but a man must also know this 
" court and country to judge what the current charges of mv situa- 

3 G 2 tion 



412 MEMOIRS OF 

" tion must inevitably be ; what the occasional ones have been can 
" only be explained by myself; and as I can clearly make it ap- 
" pear, that I have neither misapplied the money, nor abused the 
" trust of government in any instance, I cannot merit, and I am 
" persuaded I shall not experience, any misunderstanding or un- 
" kindness. 

" I have the honour to be, &c. &c. 

" R. C." 
I might have spared myself the trouble of this humiliating ap- 
peal. It produced just what it should produce — nothing ; for it was 
addressed to the feelings of those who had no feelings ; and called 
for justice, where no justice was, no mercy, no compassion, honour 
or good faith. 

I wearied the door of Lord North till his very servants drove me 
from it. I withstood the offer of a benevolent monarch, whose mu- 
nificence would have rescued me ; and I embraced ruin in my own 
country to preserve my honour as a subject of it ; selling every acre 
of my hereditary estate, jointured on my wife by marriage settle- 
ment, who generously concurred in the sacrifice, which my impro- 
vident reliance upon the faith of government compelled me to 
make. 

But I ought to speak of these things with more moderation, so 
many years having passed, and so many of the parties having died, 
since they took place. In prudence and propriety these pages 
ought not to have seen the light, till the writer of them was no 
more ; neither would they, could I have persisted in my resolution 

for 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 413 

for withholding them, till that event had consigned them into other 
hands ; but there is something paramount to prudence and pro- 
priety, which wrests them from me — 

My poverty, but not my will, consents. 

The copy-right of these Memoirs produced to me the sum of five 
hundred pounds, and if, through the candour and protection of a 
generous public, they shall turn out no bad bargain to the pur- 
chaser, I shall be most sincerely thankful, and my conscience will 
be at rest — but I look back, and find myself still at Madrid, though 
on the point of my departure — On the 15th of March I write to 
the Earl of Hillsborough as follows, viz — 
" My Lord, 

" On the 11th instant I had the honour of your lord- 
" ship's letter, dated the 14th of February, and in obedience to his 
** majesty's commands, therein signified, I took occasion on the 
" same day of demanding my passports of the minister of Spain. 
" Agreeably to the indulgence, granted me by His majesty, I yes- 
" terday took leave of Count Florida Blanca at the Pardo, and this 
" day my family presented themselves to the Princess of Asturias at 
" the convent of Santo Domingo el Real, who received their part- 
" ing acknowledgments with many expressions of kindness and con- 
" descension. I am to see the King of Spain on Sunday, and ex- 
" pect to leave Madrid on Tuesday or Wednesday next. 

" The ambassador of France having in the most obliging manner 
" given me a passport, and your lordship's letter containing no di- 
" rections to the contrary, I propose to return by Bayonne mid 

" Bourdcaux, 



414 MEMOIRS OF 

" Bourdeaux, to which route I am compelled by the state of my 
" health, and that of part of my family. 

" I have the honour to be, &c. &c. 

" R. C." 

" I hope your lordship has received my letter No. 18, also 
" those numbered 20 and 21, which conclude what I have written." 

To the sub-minister Campo, who had been confidential through- 
out, and present at almost every conference I had held with the 
Premier, I wrote as follows — 

" Madrid March 20th 1781. 

" You have done all things, my dear Sir, with the greatest kind- 
" ness and the politest attention. I have your passports, and as my 
" baggage is now ready to be inspected, I wait the directions of 
" the Minister Musquiz, which I pray you now to dispatch. To- 
" morrow in the forenoon at 11 o'clock, or any other hour more 
" convenient to the officers of the customs will suit me to attend 
" upon them. 

" You tell me that no more could be done for me, were I an 
" ambassador; I am persuaded of it, for being as I am, a depen- 
" dant on your protection, and entrusted to you by my country, 
" how can I doubt but that the Spanish point of honour will con- 
" cede to me not less, (and I should not wonder if it granted more) 
" than any ambassador can claim by privilege. 

" I have never ceased to feel a perfect confidence in my situa- 
" tion, nor ever wished for any other title to all the rights of hos- 
" pitality and protection, than what I derive from the trust, which 

" my 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 41.5 

" my court has consigned to me, and that which I repose in 
" yours. 

" I bring this letter in my pocket to the Pardo, lest you should 
" not be visible at the hour I shall arrive. I beg to recommend to 
" you the case of the English prisoners, who have undersigned the 
" inclosed paper. 

" I hope to set out on Friday ; be assured I shall carry with me 
" a lasting remembrance of your obliging favours, and I shall ar- 
" dently seize every occasion in my future life of expressing a due 
" sense of them. 

" If your leisure serves to favour us with another visit at Ma- 
" drid, we shall be happy to see you, and I shall be glad to confer 
" with you on the subject of the Spanish prisoners, and apprize 
" you of the language I shall hold on that topic upon my return 
" home. 

" On all occasions, and in every place I shall conscientiously 
" adhere to truth. Let me say for the last time I shall speak of 
" myself, that no man ever entered Spain with a more conciliating 
" disposition, and I hope I leave behind me some proofs of pa- 
" tience. 

" Farcwel ! ever faithfully yours, 

" R. C." 

On the 24th of March 1781, having taken a last painful leave of 

the worthy Abbe Curtis and the rest of my friends, at half past ten 

in the forenoon I set out upon my journey. My party consisted of 

my wife, my two eldest daughters and my infant daughter, born in 

Spain, 



416 MEMOIRS OF 

Spain, at the breast of a Spanish nurse, a wild but affectionate 
creature, native of San Andero : the good Marchetti and the poor 
redeemed prisoner Antony Smith accompanied us, and we had three 
English servants, two of which, (Thomas Camis and Mary Samson) had 
been in my family from their earliest years, and have never since 
served any other master. Two Spanish coaches, drawn by six mules 
each, with mules for our out-riders, constituted our travelling equi- 
page and I contracted for their attending upon us to Bayonne. — 
They are heavy clumsy carriages, but they carry a great deal of 
baggage, and if the traveller has patience to put up with their 
very early hours and slow pace, there is nothing else to complain 
of. 

Madrid, which may be considered as the capital of Spain, 
though it is not a city, disappoints you if you expect to find 
suburbs, or villas, or even gardens when you have passed the gates, 
being almost as closely environed with a desart as Palmyra is in its 
present state of ruin. The Spaniards themselves have no great taste 
for cultivation, and the attachment to the chace, which seems to 
be the reigning passion of the Spanish sovereigns, conspires with the 
indolence of the people in suffering every royal residence to be sur- 
rounded by a savage and unseemly wilderness. The lands, which 
should contribute to supply the markets, being thus delivered over 
to waste and barrenness, are considered only as preserves for game 
of various sorts, which includes every thing the gun can slay, and 
these are as much res sacrce as the altars, or the monks, who serve 
them. This solitudo ante ostium did not contribute to support our 

spirits, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 417 

spirits, neither did the incessant jingling of the mules' bells relieve 
the taedium of the road to Guadarama, where we were agreeably 
surprised by the Counts Kaunitz and Pietra Santa, who passed that 
night in our company, and next morning with many friendly adieus 
departed for Madrid, never to meet again — 

Animas quels candidiores 

Nusquam terra tulit — 
The next day we passed the mountains of Guadarama by a 
magnificent causeway, and entered Old Castile. Here the country 
began to change for the better : the town of Villa Castin presents a 
very agreeable spectacle, being new and flourishing, with a hand- 
some house belonging to the Marchioness of Torre-Manzanares,who 
is in part proprietor of the town. This illustrious lady was just now 
under a temporary cloud for having been party in a frolic with the 
young and animated Duchess of Alva, who had ventured to exhibit 
her fair person on the public parade in the character of postillion 
to her own equipage, whilst Torre-Manzanares mounted the box as 
coachman, and other gallant spirits took their stations behind as 
footmen, all habited in the splendid blue and silver liveries of the 
house of Alva. In some countries a whim like this would have 
passed off with eclat, in many with impunity, but in Spain, under 
the government of a moral and decorous monarch, it was regarded 
in so grave a light, that, although the great lady postillion escaped 
with a reprimand, the lady coachman was sent to her castle at a 
distance from the capital, and doomed to do penance in solitude 
and obscurity. 

3 ii We 



418 MEMOIRS OF 

We were now in the country for the Spanish wool, and this 
place being a considerable mart for that valuable article, is fur- 
nished with a very large and commodious shearing-house. We slept 
at a poor little village called San Chidrian, and being obliged to 
change our quarters on account of other travellers, who had been 
before-hand with us, we were fain to put up with the wretched ac- 
commodations of a very wretched posada. 

The third day's journey presented to us a fine champaign coun- 
try, abounding in corn and well peopled. Leaving the town of 
Arebalo, which made a respectable appearance, on our right, we 
proceeded to Almedo, a very remarkable place, being surrounded 
with a Moorish wall and towers in very tolerable preservation; 
Almedo also has a fine convent and a handsome church. 

The fourth day's journey, being March the 27th, still led us 
through a fair country, rich in corn and wine. The river Adaga 
runs through a grove of pines in a deep channel very romantic, 
wandering through a vast tract of vineyards without fences. The 
weather was serene and fresh, and gave us spirits to enjoy the 
scenery, which was new and striking. We dined at Valdestillas, a 
mean little town, and in the evening reached Valladolid, where 
bigotry may be said to have established its head quarters. The 
gate of the city, which is of modern construction, consists of three 
arches of equal span, and that very narrow ; the centre of these is 
elevated with a tribune, and upon that is placed a pedestrian statue 
of Carlos III. This gate delivers you into a spacious square, sur- 
rounded by convents and churches, and passing this, which offers no- 
thing 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 419 

thing attractive to delay you, you enter the old gate of the city, newly 
painted in bad fresco, and ornamented with an equestrian statue of 
the reigning king with a Latin inscription, very just to his virtues, 
but very little to the honour of the writer of it. You now find your- 
self in one of the most gloomy, desolate and dirty towns, that can 
be conceived, the great square much resembling that of the Plaza- 
mayor in Madrid, the houses painted in grotesque fresco, despi- 
cably executed, and the whole in miserable condition. I was in- 
formed that the convents amount to between thirty and forty. There 
is both an English and a Scotish college ; the former under the go- 
vernment of Doctor Shepherd, a man of very agreeable, cheerful, 
natural manners: I became acquainted with him at Madrid through 
the introduction of my friend Doctor Geddes, late Principal of the 
latter college, but since Bishop of Mancecos, Missionary and Vicar 
General at Aberdeen. I had an introductory letter to the Inten- 
dant, but my stay was too short to avail myself of it; and I visited 
no church but the great cathedral of the Benedictines, where Mass 
was celebrating, and the altars and whole edifice were arrayed in 
all their splendour. The fathers were extremely polite, and allowed 
me to enter the Sacristy, where I saw some valuable old paintings 
of the early Spanish masters, some of a later date, and a series of 
Benedictine Saints, who if they are not the most rigid, are indispu- 
tably the richest, order of Religious in Spain. 

Our next day's journey advanced us only six short leagues, and 
set us down in the ruinous town of Duenas, which like Olmcdo is 

3 11 2 surrounded 



420 MEMOIRS OF 

surrounded by a Moorish fortification, the gate of which is entire. 
The Calasseros, obstinate as their mules, accord to you in nothing, 
but in admitting indiscriminately a load of baggage, that would 
almost revolt a waggon, and this is indispensible, as } T ou must carry 
beds, provisions, cooking vessels, and every article for rest and 
sustenance, not excepting bread, for in this country an inn means 
a hovel, in which you may light a fire, if you can defend your right 
to it, and find a dunghill called a bed, if you can submit to lie down 
in it. 

Our sixth day's stage brought us to the banks of the Douro, . 
which we skirted and kept in sight during the whole day from 
Duenas through Torrequemara to Villa Rodrigo. The stone-bridge 
at Torrequemara is a noble edifice of eight and twenty arches. 
The windings of this beautiful river and its rocky banks, of which 
one side is always very steep, are romantic and present fine shapes 
of nature, to which nothing is wanting but trees, and they not al- 
ways. The vale, through which it flows, inclosed within these rocky 
cliffs, is luxuriant in corn and wine ; the soil in general of a fine 
loam mixed with gravel, and the fallows remarkably clean; they 
deposit their wine in caves hollowed out of the rocks. In the mean 
time it is to the bounty of nature rather than to the care and in- 
dustry of man, that the inhabitant, squalid and loathsome in his 
person, is beholden for that produce, which invites exertions, that 
he never makes, and points to comforts, that he never tastes. In 
the midst of all these scenes of plenty you encounter human misery 

in 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 421 

in its worst attire, and ruined villages amongst luxuriant vineyards. 
Such a bountiful provider is God, and so improvident a steward is 
his vicegerent in this realm. 

It should seem, that in this valley, on the banks of the fertiliz- 
ing Douro, would be the proper scite for the capital of Spain ; 
whereas Madrid is seated on a barren soil, beside a meagre stream, 
which scarce suffices to supply the washer-women, who make their 
troughs in the shallow current, which only has the appearance of a 
river, when the snow melts upon the mountains, and turns the petty 
Manzanares, that just trickles through the sand, into a roaring and 
impetuous torrent. Of the environs of Madrid I have already 
spoken, and the climate on the northern side of the Guadaramas is 
of a much superior and more salubrious quality, being not so sub- 
ject to the dangerous extremes of heat and cold, and much oftcner 
refreshed with showers, the great desideratum, for which the monks 
of Madrid so frequently importune their poor helpless saint Isi- 
dore, and make him feel their vengeance, whilst for months toge- 
ther the unrelenting clouds will not credit him with a single drop of 
rain. 

Upon our road this day we purchased three lambs at the price 
of two pisettes (shillings) apiece, and, little as it was, we hardly could 
be said to have had value for our money. Our worthy Marchetti, 
being an excellent engineer, roasted them whole with surprising ex- 
pedition and address in a kitchen and at a fire, which would have 
puzzled all the resources of a French cook, and which no English seul- 
lion would have approached in her very worst apparel. A crew of 

Catalunian 



422 MEMOIRS OF 

Catalunian carriers at Torrequemara disputed oiir exclusive title to 
the fire, and with their arroz a la Valenciana would soon have ruined 
our roast, if our gallant provedor had not put aside his capa, and 
displayed his two epaulets, to which military insignia the sturdy in- 
terlopers instantly deferred. 

There is excellent morality to be learnt in a journey of this sort. 
A supper at Villa Rodrigo is a better corrective for fastidiousness 
and false delicacy than all that Seneca or Epictetus can administer, 
and if a traveller in Spain will carry justice and fortitude about 
him, the Calasseros will teach him patience, and the Posadas will 
enure him to temperance ; having these four cardinal virtues in 
possession, he has the whole ; all Tully's offices can't find a fifth. 

On the seventh day of our travel we kept the pleasant Douro 
still in sight. Surely this river plays his natural sovereign a slippery 
trick ; rises in Galicia, is nourished and maintained in his course 
through Spain, and as soon as he is become mature in depth and 
size for trade and navigation, deserts and throws himself into the 
service of Portugal. This is the case with the Tagus also : this river 
affords the Catholic King a little angling for small fry at Aranjuez, 
and at Lisbon becomes a magnificent harbour to give wealth and 
splendour to a kingdom. The Oporto wines, that grow upon the 
banks of the Douro in its renegado course, find a ready and most 
profitable vent in England, whilst the vineyards of Castile languish 
from want of a purchaser, and in some years are absolutely cast 
away, as not paying for the labour of making them into wine. 

The city and castle of Burgos are well situated on the banks of 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 42S 

the river Relancon. Two fine stone-bridges are thrown over that 
stream, and several plantations of young trees line the road as you 
approach it. The country is well watered, and tlie heights farnisfa 
excellent pasture for sheep, being of a light downy soil. The ca- 
thedral church of Burgos deserves the notice and admiration of 
every traveller, and it was with sincere regret I found myself at 
leisure to devote no more than one hour to an edifice, that requires 
a day to examine it within side and without. It is of that order of 
Gothic, which is most profusely ornamented and enriched ; the 
towers are crowned with spires of pierced stone-work, raised upon 
arches, and laced all through with open-work like filigree : the 
windows and doors are embellished with innumerable figures, admi- 
rably carved in stone, and in perfect preservation ; the dome over 
the nave is superb, and behind the grand altar there is a spacious 
and beautiful chapel, erected by a Duke of Frejas, who lies en- 
tombed with his duchess within a stately monument, recuinbrnt 
with their heads resting upon cushions, in their robes and coronets, 
well sculptured in most exquisite marble of the purest white. The 
bas-relieves at the back of the grand altar, representing passages 
in the life and actions of our Saviour, are wonderful samples of 
sculpture, and the carrying of the cross in particular is expressed 
with all the delicacy of Raphael's famous Pasma de Sicilia. The 
stalls of the choir in brown oak are finely executed and exhibit an 
innumerable groupe of figures : whilst the seats are ludicrously in- 
laid with grotesque representations of fauns and satyrs unaccount- 
ably contrasted with the sacred history of the carved work, that 

encloses 



424 MEMOIRS OF 

encloses them. The altars, chapels, sacristy and cloisters are equally 
to be admired, nor are there wanting some fine paintings, though 
not profusely bestowed. The priests conducted me through every 
part of the cathedral with the kindest attention and politeness, 
though Mass was then in high celebration. 

When I was on my departure, and my carriages were in waiting, 
a parcel of British seamen, who had been prisoners of war, most 
importunately besought me, that I would ask their liberation of the 
Bishop of Burgos, and allow them to make their way out of the 
country under my protection. This good bishop, in his zeal for 
making converts, had taken these fellows upon their word into his 
list of pensioners, as true proselytes, and allowed them to establish 
themselves in various occupations and callings, which they now 
professed themselves most heartily disposed to abandon, and doubted 
not but I should find him as willing to release them, as they were to 
be set free. Though I gave little credit to their assertions, I did not 
refuse to make the experiment, and wrote to the bishop in their 
behalf, promising to obtain the release of the like number of Spa- 
nish prisoners, if he would allow me to take these men away with 
me. To my great surprise I instantly received his free consent and 
permit under his hand and seal to dispose of them as I saw fit. This 
I accordingly did, and by. occasional reliefs upon the braces of my 
carriages marched my party of renegadoes entire into Bayonne, 
where I got leave upon certain conditions to embark them on board 
a neutral ship bound to Lisbon, and consigned them to Commodore 
Johnstone, or the commanding officer for the time being, to be put 

on 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 423 

on board, and exchanged for the like number of Spanish prisoners, 
which accordingly was done with the exception of one or two, who 
turned aside by the way. I have reason to believe the good bishop 
was thoroughly sick of his converts, and 1 encountered no oppo- 
sition from the ladies, whom two or three of them had taken to 
wife. 

We pursued our eighth day's journey over a deep rich soil, with 
mountains in sight covered with snow, which had fallen two days 
before. There was now a scene of more wood, and the face of the 
country much resembled parts of England. We advanced but seven 
leagues, the river Relancon accompanying us for the last three, 
where our road was cut out of the side of a steep cliff, very narrow, 
and so ill defended, that in many places the precipice, consider- 
ing the mode, in which the Spanish Calasseros drive, was seriously 
alarming. The wild woman of San Andero, who nursed my infant, 
during this day's journey was at high words with the witches, who 
twice pulled off her redecilla, and otherwise annexed her in a very 
provoking manner till we arrived at Breviesca, a tolerable good Spa- 
nish town, where they allowed her to repose, and we heard no more 
of them. 

From Breviesca we travelled through a fine picturesque country 
of a rich soil to Pancorvo at the foot of a steep range of rocky 
mountains, and passing through a most romantic fissure in the rock, 
a work of great art and labour, we reached the river Ebro, which 
forms the boundary of Old Castile. Upon this river stands the town 
of Miranda, which is approached over a new bridge of seven -tone 

3 I arches, 



42(5 MEMOIRS OF 

arches, and we lodged ourselves for the night in the posada at the 
foot of it ; a house of the worst reception we had met in Spain, 
which is giving it as ill a name as I can well bestow upon any house 
whatever. 

A short stage brought us from Breviesca to the town of Vittoria, 
the capital of Alaba, which is one portion of the delightful province 
of Biscay. We were now for the first time lodged with some degree 
of comfort. We shewed our passport at the custom-house, and the 
administrator of the post-office having desired to have immediate 
notice of our arrival, I requested my friend Marchetti to go to him, 
and in the mean time poor Smith passed a very anxious interval of 
suspense, fearing that he might be stopped by order of government 
in this place, (a suspicion I confess not out of the range of probabi- 
lities) but it proved to be only a punctilio of the Sub-minister 
Campo, who had written to this gentleman to be particular in his 
attentions to us, inclosing his card, as if in person present to take 
leave ; this mark of politeness on his part produced a present from 
the administrator of some fine asparagus, and excellent sweetmeats, 
the produce of the country, with the further favour of a visit from 
the donor, a gentleman of great good manners and much respecta- 
bility. 

The Marquis Legarda, Governor of Vittoria, to whom I had a 
letter from Count D'Yranda, the Marquis D'Allamada, and other 
gentlemen of the place, did us the honour to visit us, and were ex- 
tremely polite. We were invited by the Dominicans to their con- 
vent, and saw some very exquisite paintings of Ribeira and Murillo. 

At 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 427 

At noon we took our departure for Mondragone, passing through a 
country of unclescribable beauty. The scale is vast, the heights 
arc lofty without being tremendous, the cultivation is of various 
sorts, and to be traced in every spot, where the hand of industry 
can reach : a profusion of fruit trees in blossom coloured the land- 
scape with such vivid and luxuriant tints, that we had new charms 
to admire upon every shift and winding of the road. The people 
are laborious, and the fields being full of men and women at their 
work (for here both sexes make common task) nothing could be 
more animated than the scenery; 'twas not in human nature to 
present a stronger contrast to the gloomy character and squalid in- 
dolence of the Castilians. And what is it, which constitutes this 
marked distinction between such near neighbours, subjects of the 
same King, and separated from each other only by a narrow stream ? 
It is because the regal power, which in Castile is arbitrary, is 
limited by local laws in Catalunia, and gives passage for one ray of 
liberty to visit that happier and more enlightened country. 

From Mondragone we went to Villa Franca, where we dined, 
and finished our twelfth day's journey atTolosa; the country still 
presented a succession of the most enchanting scenery, but I was 
now become insensible to its beauties, being so extremely ill, that 
it was not without much difficulty, so excruciating were my pains, 
that I reached Tolosa. Here I staid three days, and when I found 
my fever would not yield to James's powder, 1 resolved to attempt 
getting to Bayonne, where I might hope to find medical assistance, 
and better accommodation. 

3 i 2 On 



428 MEMOIRS OF 

On the seventeenth day, after suffering tortures from the rough- 
ness of the roads, I reached Bayonne, and immediately put myself 
under the care of Doctor Vidal, a Huguenot physician. Here I 
passed three miserable weeks, and though in a state of almost con- 
tinual delirium throughout the whole of this time, I can yet recol- 
lect that under Providence it is only owing to the unwearied care 
and tender attentions of my ever-watchful Avife, (assisted by her 
faithful servant Mary Samson) that I was kept alive ; from her 
hands I consented to receive sustenance and medicine, and to her 
alone in the disorder of my senses I was uniformly obedient. 

It was at this period of time that the aggravating news arrived 
of my bills being stopped, and my person subjected .to arrest. I 
was not sensible to the extent of my danger, for death hung over 
me, and threatened to supersede all arrests but of a lifeless corpse : 
the kind heart however of Marchetti had compassion for my dis- 
consolate condition, and he found means to supply me with five 
hundred pounds, as I have already related. It pleased God to 
preserve my life, and this seasonable act of friendship preserved my 
liberty. The early fruits of the season, and the balmy temperature 
of the air in that delicious climate, aided the exertions of my phy- 
sician, and I was at length enabled to resume nry journey, taking a 
day's rest in the magnificent town of Bourdeaux, from whence 
through Tours, Blois and Orleans I proceeded to Paris, which how- 
ever I entered in a state as yet but doubtfully convalescent, ema- 
ciated to a skeleton, the bones of my back and elbows still bare and 
staring through my skin. 

I had 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 429 

I had both Florida Blanca's and Count Montmorin's passports, 
but my applications for post-horses were in vain, and here I should 
in all probability have ended my career, as I felt myself relapsing 
apace, had I not at length obtained the long-withheld permission 
to pass onwards. They had pounded the King of Spain's horses 
also for the space of a whole month, but these were liberated when 
I got my freedom, and I embarked them at Ostend, from whence I 
took my passage to Margate, and arrived at my house in Portland- 
Place, destined to experience treatment, which I had not merited, 
and encounter losses, I have never overcome. 

I will here simply relate an incident without attempting to draw 
any conjectures from it, which is, that whilst I laid ill at Bayonne, 
insensible, and as it was supposed at the point of death, the very 
monk, who had been so troublesome to me at Elvas, found his way 
into my chamber, and upon the alarm given by my wife, who per- 
fectly recognized his person, was only driven out of it by force. 
Again when I was in Paris, and about to sit down to dinner, a 
sallad was brought to me by the lacquey, who waited on me, which 
was given to him for me by a red-haired Dominican, whose person 
according to his description exactly tallied with that of the afore- 
said monk; I dispatched my servant Camis in pursuit of him, but 
he had escaped, and my suspicion of the sallad being poisoned was 
confirmed by experiment on a dog. 

I shall only add that somewhere in Castile, I forget the place, 
but it was between Valladolid and Burgos, as I was sitting on a 
bench at the door of a house, where my Calasscros were giving 

water 



430 MEMOIRS OF 

water to the mules, I tendered my snuff box to a grave elderly man, 
who seemed of the better sort of Castilians, and who appeared to 
have thrown himself in my way, sitting down beside me as one who 
invited conversation. The stranger looked steadily in my face, and 
after a pause put his fingers in my box, and, taking a very small 
portion of my snuff between them, said to me — " I am not afraid, 
" Sir, of trusting myself to you, whom I know to be an English- 
" man, and a person, in whose honour I may perfectly repose. But 
" there is death concealed in many a man's snuff box, and I would 
" seriously advise you on no account to take a single pinch from the 
" box of any stranger, who may offer it to you ; and if you have 
" done that already, I sincerely hope no such consequences as I 
" allude to will result from your want of caution." I continued in 
conversation with this stranger for some time ; I told him I had never 
before been apprised of the practices he had spoken of, and, being 
perfectly without suspicion, I might, or might not, have exposed 
myself to the danger, he was now so kind as to apprize me of, but 
I observed to him that however prudent it might be to guard my- 
self against such evil practices in other countries, I should not ex- 
pect to meet them in Castile, where the Spanish point of honour 
most decidedly prevailed. " Ah, Senor," he replied, they may not 
" all be Spaniards, whom you have chanced upon, or shall hereafter 
" chance upon, in Castile/' When I asked him how this snuff ope- 
rated on those who took it, his answer was, as I expected — " On 
" the brain." I was not curious to enquire who this stranger was, 
as I paid little attention to his information at the time, though I 

confess 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 431 

confess it occurred to me, when after a few days I was seized with 
such agonies in my head, as deprived me of my senses : I merely 
give this anecdote, as it occurred ; I draw no inferences from it. 

I have now done with Spain, and if the detail, which I have 
truly given of my proceedings, whilst I was there in trust, may 
serve to justify me in the opinion of those, who read these Memoirs, 
I will not tire their patience with a dull recital of my unprofitable 
efforts to obtain a just and equitable indemnification for my ex- 
pences according to agreement. The evidences indeed are in my 
hands, and the production of them would be highly discreditable 
to the memory of some, who are now no more ; but redress is out of 
my reach ; the time for that is long since gone by, and has carried 
me on so far towards the hour, which must extinguish all human 
feelings, that there can be little left for me to do but to employ the 
remaining pages of this history in the best manner I can devise, 
consistently with strict veracity, for the satisfaction of those, who 
may condescend to peruse them, and to whom I should be above 
measure $orry to appear in the character of a querulous, discon- 
tented and resentful old man ; I rather hope that when I shall have 
laid before them a detail of literary labours, such as few have ex- 
ecuted within a period of the like extent, they will credit me for 
my industry at least and allow me to possess some claim upon the 
favour of posterity as a man, who in honest pride of conscience has 
not let his spirit sink under oppression and neglect, nor suffered his 
good will to mankind, or his zeal for his country's service and the 

honour 



432 MEMOIRS OF 

honour of his God, to experience intermission or abatement, nor 
made old age a plea for indolence, or an apology for ill humour. 

Nevertheless as I have charged my employers with a direct 
breach of faith, it seems necessary for my more perfect vindication, 
to support that charge by an official document, and this considera- 
tion will I trust be my sufficient apology for inserting the following 

statement of my claim 

** To the Right Honourable Lord North &c. &c. &c. 

" The humble Memorial of Richard Cumberland 
14 Sheweth, 

44 That your Memorialist in April 1780 received His 
44 Majesty's most secret and confidential orders and instructions to 
44 set out for the Court of Spain in company with the Abbe Hussey, 
44 one of His Catholic Majesty's chaplains, for the purpose of nego- 
44 ciating a separate peace with that court. 

44 That to render the object of this commission more secret, your 
44 Memorialist was directed to take his family with him to Lisbon, 
44 under the pretence of recovering the health of one of his daugh- 
" ters, which he accordingly did, and having sent the Abbe Hussey 
44 before him to the Court of Spain, agreeably to the King's instruc- 
44 tions, your Memorialist and his family soon after repaired to 
44 Aranjuez, where His Catholic Majesty then kept his court. 

44 That your Memorialist upon setting out on this important 
44 undertaking received by the hands of John Robinson Esquire, one 
44 of the secretaries of the Treasury, the sum of one thousand pounds 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 433 

" on account, with directions how he should draw, through the 
" channel of Portugal, upon his banker in England for such further 
" sums as might be necessary, (particularly for a large discretionary 
" sum to be employed, as occasion might require, in secret services) 
" and your Memorialist was directed to accompany his drafts by a 
" separate letter to Mr. Secretary Robinson, advising him what sum 
" or sums he had given order for, that the same might be replaced 
" to your Memorialist's credit with the bank of Messieur Crofts and 
" Co. in Pall Mall. 

" That your Memorialist in the execution of this commission, 
" for the space of nearly fourteen months, defrayed the expences of 
" Abbe Hussey's separate journey into Spain, paid all charges in- 
" curred by him during four months residence there, and supplied 
" him with money for his return to England, no part of which has 
" been repaid to your Memorialist. 

" That your Memorialist with his family took two very long and 
" expensive journies, (the one by way of Lisbon and the other 
" through France) no consideration for which has been granted to 
" him. 

" That your Memorialist, during his residence in Spain, was 
" obliged to follow the removals of the court to Aranjuez, San 
" Ildefonso, the Escurial and Madrid, besides frequent visits to 
" the Pardo ; in all which places, except the Pardo, he was obliged 
" to lodge himself, the expence of which can only be known to 
" those, who in the service of their court have incurred it. 

" That every article of necessary expence, being inordinately 

3 k " high 



434 MEMOIRS OV 






" high in Madrid, your Memorialist, without assuming any vain 
" appearance of a minister, and with as much domestic frugality as 
" possible, incurred a very heavy charge. 

" That your Memorialist having no courier with him, nor any 
" cypher, was obliged to employ his own servant in that trust, and 
" the servant of Abbe Hussey, at his own proper cost, no part of 
which has been repaid to him. 

That your Memorialist did at considerable charge obtain pa- 
" pers and documents, containing information of a very important 
" nature, which need not here be enumerated ; of which charge so 
" incurred no part has been repaid. 

" That upon the capture of the East and West India ships by 
" the enemy, your Memorialist was addressed by many of the Bri- 
" tish prisoners, some of whom he relieved with money, and in all 
" cases obtained the prayer of their memorials. Your Memorialist 
** also, through the favour of the Bishop of Burgos, took with him 
" out of Spain some valuable British seamen, and restored them to 
'* His Majesty's fleet; and this also he did at his own cost. 

" That your Memorialist during his residence in Spain was indis- 
" pensibly obliged to cover these his unavoidable expences by se- 
" veral drafts upon his banker to the amount of 45001. of which not 
i( one single bill has been replaced, nor one farthing issued to his 
" support during fourteen months expensive and laborious duty in 
" the King's immediate and most confidential service ; the conse- 
" quence of which unparalleled treatment was, that your Memo- 
" rialist was stopped and arrested at Bayonne by order from his 

" remittances 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 435 

44 remittancers at Madrid; in this agonizing situation your Memo 
44 rialist, being then in the height of a most violent fever, surround- 
" ed by a family of helpless women in an enemy's country, and 
" abandoned by his employers, on whose faith he had relied, found 
44 himself incapable of proceeding on his journey, and destitute of 
" means for subsisting where he was : under this accumulated distress 
" he must have sunk and expired, had not the gencrosit\ r of an 
44 officer in the Spanish service, who had accompanied him into 
44 France, supplied his necessities with the loan of five hundred 
44 pounds, and passed the King of Great-Britain's bankrupt servant 
" into his own country, for which humane action this friendly offi- 
" cer, (Marchetti by name) was arrested at Paris, and by the Count 
" D'Aranda remanded back to Madrid, there to take his chance 
" for what the influence of France may find occasion to devise 
" against him. 

" Your Memorialist, since his return to England, having, after 
44 innumerable attempts, gained one only admittance to your lord- 
44 ship's person for the space of more than ten months, and not one 
" answer to the frequent and humble suit he has made to you by 
44 letter, presumes now for the last time to solicit your consideration 
44 of his case, and as he is persuaded it is not, and cannot be, in 
44 your lordship's heart to devote and abandon to unmerited ruin an 
44 old and faithful servant of the crown, who has been the father of 
44 four sons, (one of whom has lately died, and three are now car- 
44 rying arms in the service of their King) your Memorialist humbly 

3 k 2 « prays, 



436 MEMOIRS OF 

" prays, that you will give order for him to be relieved in such 
" manner, as to your lordship's wisdom shall seem meet — 
" All which is humbly submitted by 

" Your lordship's most obedient 

"And most humble servant, 

" Richard Cumberland." 

This memorial, which is perhaps too long and loaded, I am 
persuaded Lord North never took the pains to read, for I am un- 
willing to suppose, that, if he had, he would have treated it with 
absolute neglect. He was upon the point of quitting office when I 
gave it in, and being my last effort I was desirous of summing up 
the circumstances of my case so, that if he had thought fit to grant 
me a compensation, this statement might have been a justification 
to his successor for the issue ; but it produced no compensation, 
though I should presume it proved enough to have touched the 
feelings of one of the best tempered men living, if he would have 
devoted a very few minutes to the perusal of it. 

It is not possible for me to call to^mind a character in all essen- 
tial points so amiable as that of this departed minister, and not wish 
to find some palliation for his oversights ; but if I were now to say 
that I acquit him of injustice to me, it would be affectation and 
hypocrisy ; at the same time I must think, that Mr. Secretary Ro- 
binson, who was the vehicle of the promise, was more immediately 
bound to solicit and obtain the fulfilment of it, and this I am per- 
suaded was completely in his power to do : to him therefore I ad- 
dressed 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 437 

dressed such remonstrances, and enforced them in such terms, as 
no manly spirit ought to have put up with ; but anger and high 
words make all things worse ; and language, which a man has not 
courage to resent, he never will have candour to forgive. 

When in process of time I saw and knew Lord North in his re- 
tirement from all public affairs, patient, collected, resigned to an 
afflicting visitation of the severest sort, when all but his illuminated 
mind was dark around him, I contemplated an affecting and an 
edifying object, that claimed my admiration and esteem ; a man, 
who when divested of that incidental greatness, which high office 
for a time can give, self-dignified and independent, rose to real 
greatness of his own creating, which no time can take away ; whose 
genius gave a grace to every thing he said, and whose benignity 
shed a lustre upon every thing he did ; so richly was his memory 
stored, and so lively was his imagination in applying what he re- 
membered, that after the great source of information was shut 
against himself, he still possessed a boundless fund of information 
for the instruction and delight of others. Some hours (and those 
not few) of his society he was kind in bestowing upon me : I ea- 
gerly courted, and very highly prized them. 

I experienced no abatement in the friendship of Lord Ceorge 
Germain ; on the contrary it was from this time chiefly to the day 
of his death, that I lived in the greatest intimacy with him. Whilst 
he held the seals I continued to attend upon him both in public 
and in private, rendering him all the voluntary service in inv power, 
particularly on his Levee-days, which he held in my apartment in 

the 



438 MEMOIRS OF 

the Plantation office, though he had ceased to preside at the Board 
of Trade, and here great numbers of American loyalists, who had 
taken refuge in England, were in the habit of resorting to him : it 
was an arduous and delicate business to conduct : I may add it 
was also a business of some personal risque and danger, as it en- 
gaged me in very serious explanations upon more occasions than 
one. Upon Lord George's putting into my hands a letter he had 
received from a certain naval officer, very disrespectful towards 
him, and most unjustifiably so to me, for having brought him an 
answer to an application, which he was pleased to consider as pri- 
vate and confidential, I felt myself obliged to take the letter with 
me to that gentleman, and require him to write and sign an apology 
of my own dictating ; whatever was his motive for doing what I 
peremptorily required, so it was, that to my very great surprise he 
submitted to transcribe and sign it, and when I exhibited it to 
Lord George, he acknowledged it to be the most complete revo- 
cation and apology he had ever met with. 

There were other situations still more delicate, in which I occa- 
sionally became involved, but which I forbear to mention ; but in 
those unpleasant times men's passions were enflamed, and in every 
case, when reasoning would not serve to allay intemperance, and 
explanation was lost upon them, I never scrupled to abide the con- 
sequence. 

When Lord George Germain resigned the seals, the King was 
graciously pleased in reward for his services, to call him to the 
House of Lords by the title of Viscount Sackville. The well known 

circumstance, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 439 

circumstance, that occurred upon the event of his elevation to the 
peerage, made a deep and painful impression on his feeling mind, 
and if his seeming patience under the infliction of it should appear 
to merit in a moral sense the name of virtue, I must candidly ac- 
knowledge it as a virtue, that he had no title to be credited for, 
inasmuch as it was entirely owing to the influence of some, who 
over-ruled his propensities, and made themselves responsible for his 
honour, that he did not betake himself to the same abrupt unwar- 
rantable mode of dismissing this insult, as he had resorted to in 
a former instance. No man can speak from a more intimate know- 
ledge of his feelings upon this occasion than I can, and if I was 
not on the side of those, who no doubt spoke well and wisely when 
the}' spoke for peace, it is one amongst the many errors and of- 
fences, which I have yet to repent of. 

There was once a certain Sir Edward Sackville, whom the world 
has heard of, who probably would not have possessed himself with 
so much calmness and forbearance as did a late noble head of his 
family, whilst the question I allude to was in agitation, and he 
present in his place. It was by the medium of this noble personage 
that the Lord Viscount Sackville meditated to send that invitation 
he had prepared, when the interposition and well-considered re- 
monstrances of some of his nearest friends, (in particular of Lord 
Amherst) put him by from his resolve, and dictated a conduct more 
conformable to prudence, but much less suited to his inclination. 

The law, that is sufficient for the redress of injuries, does not 
always reach to the redress of insults ; thus it comes to pass, that 

many 



440 MEMOIRS OF 

many men, in other respects wise and just and temperate, not 
having resolution to be right in their own consciences, have set 
aside both reason and religion, and, in compliance with the evil 
practice of the world about them, performed their bloody sacri- 
fices, and immolated human victims to the idol of false honour. 
Truth obliges me to confess that the friend, of whom I am 
speaking, though possessing one of the best and kindest hearts, 
that ever beat within a human breast, was with difficulty diverted 
from resorting a second time to that desperate remedy, which mo- 
dern empirics have prescribed for wounds of a peculiar sort, often- 
times imaginary and always to be cured by patience. 

When Lord North's administration was overturned, and the 
Board of Trade, of which I was Secretary, dismissed under the 
regulations of what is commonly called Mr. Burke's Bill, I found 
myself set adrift upon a compensation, which though much nearer 
to an equivalent than what I had received upon my Spanish claims, 
was yet in value scarce a moiety of what I was deprived of. By 
the operation of this reform, after I had sacrificed the patrimony I 
was born to^ a very considerable reduction was made even of the 
remnant, that was left to me : I lost no time in putting my family 
upon such an establishment, as prudence dictated, and fixed my- 
self at Tunbridge Wells. 

This place, of which I had made choice, and in which I have 
continued to reside for more than twenty years, had much to re- 
commend it, and very little, that in any degree made against it. 
It is not altogether a public place, yet it is at no period of the 

vear 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 441 

year a solitude. A reading man may command his hours of study, 
and a social man will find full gratification for his philanthropy. 
Its vicinity to the capital brings quick intelligence of all that passes 
there: the morning papers reach us before the hour of dinner, and 
the evening ones before breakfast the next day; whilst between the 
arrival of the general post and its departure there is an interval of 
twelve hours; an accommodation in point of correspondence that even 
London cannot boast of. The produce of the neighbouring farms 
and gardens, and the supplies of all sorts for the table arc excellent 
in their quality ; the country is on all sides beautiful, and the cli- 
mate pre-eminently healthy, and in a most peculiar degree resto- 
rative to enfeebled constitutions. For myself I can say, that 
through the whole of my long residence at Tunbridge Wells I never 
experienced a single hour's indisposition, that confined me to my 
bed, though I believe I may say with truth that till then I had 
encountered as many fevers, and had as many serious struggles for 
my life, as have fallen to most men's lots in the like term of 
years. 

Some people can sit down in a place, and live so entirely to 
themselves and the small circle of their acquaintance, as to have 
little or no concern about the people, amongst w om they reside. 
The contrary to this has ever been my habit, and wheresoever my 
lot in life has cast me, something more than curiosity has always 
induced me to mix with the mass, and interest myself in the con- 
cerns of my neighbours and fellow subjects, however humble in 
degree ; and from the contemplation of their characters, from my 

3 l acquaintance 



442 MEMOIRS OF 

acquaintance with their hearts and my assured possession of their 
affections, I can truly declare that I have derived, and still enjoy 
some of the most gratifying sensations, that reflection can bestow. 
The Men of Kent, properly so called, are a peculiar race, well 
worthy of the attention and study of the philanthropist. There is 
not only a distinguishing cast of humour, but a dignity of mind and 
principle about them, which is the very clue, that will lead you 
into their hearts, if rightly understood ; but, if mistaken or misused, 
you will find them quick enough to conceive, and more than for- 
ward enough to express, their proud comtempt and resolute defi- 
ance of you. I have said in my first volume of Arundel, page 220, 
that they are — " a race distinguishable above all their fellow sub- 
" jects for the beauty of their persons, the dignity of their senti- 
" ments, the courage of their hearts, and the elegance of their 
" manners — " Many years have passed since I gave this testimony, 
and the full experience I have now had of the men of Kent, ever 
my kind friends, and now become my comrades and fellow soldiers, 
confirms every word that I have said, or can say, expressive of their 
worthiness, or my esteem. 

The house, which I rented of Mr. John Fry, at that time master 
of the Sussex Tavern, was partly new and partly attached to an old 
foundation ; it was sufficient for my family, and when I had fitted 
it up with part of my furniture, and all my pictures from Port- 
land-Place, it had more the air of comfort and less the appearance 
of a lodging house than most in the place : it was by no means the 
least of its recommendations, that it was well appointed with of- 
fices 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 443 

fices and accommodations for those old and faithful domestics, who 
continued in my service. There was a square patch of ground in 
front, of about half an acre, fenced and planted round with trees, 
which I converted into a flower garden and encircled with a sand 
walk : it had now become the only lot of English terra firma, over 
which I had a legal right, and I treated it with a lover-like atten- 
tion ; it soon produced me excellent wall-fruit of my own rearing, 
and at last I found a little friendly spot, the only one as yet dis- 
covered, in which my laurels flourished. My true and trusty 
servant Thomas Camis, (more than ever attached, because more 
than ever necessary to me) had a passion for a flower garden, and 
he quickly made it a bed of sweets and a display of beauty. It 
was now, unhappily for me, too evident, that the once-excellent 
constitution of my beloved wife, my best friend and under Provi- 
dence the preserver of my life, was sinking under the effects, which 
her late sufferings and exertions in attending upon me, had entailed 
upon her : I had tried the sea-coast, and other places before 1 set- 
tled here, but in this climate only could she breathe with freedom 
and experience repose : the boundary of our little garden was in 
general the boundary of her walk, and beyond it her strength but 
rarely suffered her to expatiate : so long as she could have recourse 
to her horse, she made a struggle for fresh air and exercise, but 
when she had the misfortune to lose her favourite Spaniard, so in- 
valuable and so wonderfully attached to her, she despaired of re- 
placing him, and I can well believe there was not in all England 
an animal that could. He had belonged to the King of Spain, and 

5 l 2 came, 



444 MEMOIRS OF 

came, by what means I have forgot, into the possession of Connt 
Joseph Kaunitz, who gave him to Mrs. Cumberland : he was a most 
perfect war-horse, though upon the scale of a galloway, and whilst 
his eyes menaced every thing that was fiery and rebellious, nothing 
living was more sweet and gentle in his nature: he could not 
speak, for he had not the organs of speech, but he had dog-like 
sagacity, and understood the words, that were addressed to him, 
and the caresses, that were, bestowed upon him. Being entire, and 
of course prohibited from passing out of Spain, I am persuaded 
some villainous measures were practised on the Frontiers towards 
him in his journey, for he died in agonies under so inveterate a 
strangury, that though I applied all the remedies, that an excel- 
lent surgeon could suggest for his relief, nothing could save him, 
and he expired, Avhilst resting his head on my shoulder, his eyes 
being fixed upon me with that intelligent and piteous expression, 
which seemed to say — Can you do nothing to assuage my pain ? I 
thank God I never angrily and unjustifiably chastised but one 
horse to my remembrance, and that creature, (a barb given to me by 
Lord Halifax) never whilst it had life forgave me, or would be re- 
conciled to let me ride it in any peace, though it carried my wife 
with all imaginable gentleness. I disdain to make any apology for 
this prattle, nor am willing to suppose it can be uninteresting to a 
benevolent reader ; for those who are not such, I have no concern. 
The man, who is cruel to his beast is odious, and I am inclined to 
think there may be cruelty expressed even in the treatment of 
things inanimate ; in short I believe that I am destined to die, as I 

have 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 44o 

have lived, with all that family weakness about me, which will 
hardly suffer me to chastise offence, or tell a fellow creature he is a 
rascal, for fear the intimation should give him pain. I have been 
wrongfully and hardly dealt with ; 1 have had my feelings wounded 
without mercy ; I declare to God I never knowingly wronged a fel- 
low creature, or designedly offended: if, whilst I am giving my 
own history, I am to give my own character, this in few words is 
the truth ; I am too old, too conscientious, too well persuaded and 
too fearful of a judgment to come, to dare to go to death with a lie 
in my mouth: let the censors of my actions, and the scrutinizers of 
my thoughts, confute me, if they can. 

The children, who were inmate with me, when I settled at Tun- 
bridge Wells, were my second daughter Sophia, and the infant 
Marianne, born to me in Spain: my three surviving sons, Richard, 
Charles and William, were serving in the 1st regiment of guards, 
the 10th foot and the royal navy : my eldest daughter Elizabeth 
had married the Lord Edward Bentinck, brother to the Duke of 
Portland, and at that time member for the county of Nottingham ; 
of him were I to attempt at saying what my experience of his cha- 
racter, and my affection for his person would suggest, I should only 
punish his sensibility, and fall far short of doing justice to my own: 
he is too well esteemed and beloved to need my praise, and how 
truly and entirely I love him is I trust too well known to require 
professions. 

I was now within an hour's ride of Stonelands, where Lord Sack- 
ville resided for part of the year, and as this was amongst the mo- 
tive* 



446 MEMOIRS OF 

tives, that led me to locate myself at Tunbridge Wells, so it was 
always one of my chief gratifications to avail myself of my vicinity 
to so true and dear a friend. 

Being now dismissed from office I was at leisure to devote my- 
self to that passion, which from my earliest youth had never wholly 
left me, and I resorted to my books and my pen, as to friends, who 
had animated me in the morning of my day, and were now to oc- 
cupy and uphold me in the evening of it. I had happily a collec- 
tion of books, excellent in their kind, and perfectly adapted to my 
various and discursive course of reading. In almost every margin I 
recognized the hand-writing of my grandfather Bentley, and where- 
ever I traced his remains, they were sure guides to direct and gra- 
tify me in my fondness for philological researches. My mind had 
been harassed in a variety of ways, but the spirit, that from re- 
sources within itself can find a never-failing fund of occupation, 
will not easily be broken by events, that do not touch the consci- 
ence. That portion of mental energy, which nature had endowed 
me with, was not impaired ; on the contrary I took a larger and 
more various range of study than I had ever done before,, and colla- 
terally with other compositions began to collect materials for those 
essays, which I afterwards compleated and made public under the 
title of The Observer. I sought no other dissipation than the indul- 
gence of my literary faculties could afford me, and in the mean 
time I kept silence from complaint, sensible how ill such topics re- 
commend a man to society in general, and how very nearly most 
men's show of pity is connected with contempt. 

I had 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 447 

I had already published in two volumes my Anecdotes of eminent 
Pai?iters in Spain. I am flattered to believe it was an interesting 
and curious work to readers of a certain sort, for there had been no 
such regular history of the Spanish school in our language, and 
when I added to it the authentic catalogue of the paintings in the 
royal palace at Madrid, I gave the world what it had not seen 
before, as that catalogue was the first that had been made, and 
was by permission of the King of Spain undertaken at my request, 
and transmitted to me after my return to England. 

When these Anecdotes had been for some short time before the 
public, I was surprised to find myself arraigned for having in- 
troduced a passage in my second volume, grossly imjurious to the 
reputation of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and I am sorry to add that I 
had reason to believe, that the misconception of my motives for 
the insertion of that passage was adopted by Sir Joshua himself. 
The charge consists in my having quoted a passage from a publica- 
tion of Azara's, which, but for my noticing it, might have never 
met the observation of the English reader. I own I thought this 
charge too ridiculous to merit any answer, for I had not gone out 
of my way to seek Azara's publication ; it was in the shops at 
London, and there I chanced upon it and purchased it. Azara 
was the friend of Mengs, and treats professedly of his character and 
compositions. A work of this sort was in no degree likely to pre- 
serve its incognito, neither had it so done before it came into my 
hands. 

The following extract from my 2d vol. p. 206, comprises every 

word, 



448 MEMOIRS OF 

word, that has any reference to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and I am per- 
suaded it cannot fail to acquit me in the judgment of every one, 
who reads it, most clearly and completely — this it is — " Whether 
" Mengs really thought with contempt of art, which was inferior 
" to his own, I will not pretend to decide ; but that he was apt to 
" speak contemptuously of artists superior to himself, I am inclined 
" to believe. Azara tell us that he pronounced of the academical 
" lectures of our Reynolds, that they were calculated to mislead 
" young students into error, teaching nothing but those superficial 
" principles, which he plainly avers are all that the author himself 
" knows of the art he professes — Del libro moderno del Sr Reynolds, 
" Ingles, decia que es una obra, que puede conducir los Juvenes al 
" error; posque se queda en los principios super jiciales, que conoce sola- 
" mente a quel autor — Azara immediately proceeds to say that Mengs 
" was of a temperament colerico y adusto, and that his bitter and 
" satirical turn created him injinitos agrcwiados y quejosos. When 
" his historian and friend says this, there is no occasion for me to 
" repeat the remark. If the genius of Mengs had been capable of 
" producing a composition equal to that of the tragic and pathetic 
w Ugolino, I am persuaded such a sentence as the above would 
*' never have passed his lips ; but flattery made him vain, and sick- 
" ness rendered him peevish ; he found himself at Madrid in a 
" country without rivals, and, because the arts had travelled out of 
" his sight, he was disposed to think they existed no where but on 
" his own pallet." 

If this be not sufficient for my justification I could wish any of 

my 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 449 

my readers, who has my book within his reach, would refer himself 
to the page in question, and read onwards till I dismiss the subject 
of Mergs with the following strictures on his talents, dictated no 
doubt in that spirit of resentment, which Azara's anecdote above 
recorded had most evidently inspired ; for what more highly tinc- 
tured with asperity could be said of Mengs, than — " that he was an 
" artist, who had seen much, and invented little; that he dispenses 
" neither life nor death to his figures, excites no terror, rouses no 
" passions and risqucs no flights ; that by studying to avoid parti- 
" cular defects, he incurs general ones, and paints with tameness 
" and servility ; that the contracted scale and idea of a painter of 
" miniatures, (as which he was brought up) is to be traced in all or 
" most of his compositions, in which a finished delicacy of pencil 
" exhibits the hand of the artist, but gives no emanations of the 
" soul of the master ? If it is beauty, it does not warm ; if it is 
" sorrow, it excites no pity : that when the angel announces the salu- 
" tation to Mary, it is a messenger, that has neither used dispatch 
" in his errand, nor grace in his delivery of it; that although Rubens 
" was by one of his oracular sayings condemned to the ignominious 
" dullness of a Dutch translator, Mengs was as capable of painting 
" Rubens's Adoration, as he was of creating the star in the east, 
" that ushered the Magi. But these are questions above my capa- 
" city ; I resign Mengs to abler critics and Reynolds to better de- 
" fenders ; well contented that posterity should admire them both, 
" and well assured that the fame of our countryman is established 
44 beyond the reach of envy or detraction." 

3 m If 



450 MEMOIRS OF 

If I had been aiming to employ the authority of Mengs against 
the reputation of Reynolds, I think it would not have been my part 
to take such pains for lessening the importance of it, and disap- 
pointing my own purpose. I cannot doubt but I am fairly open 
to reproach for these invectives against the fame of Mengs, but 
if there is any edge in the weapon I have wielded, I may say to his 
shade — 

Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas 

Immolat — 

In the second volume, p. 8, where I am speaking of the great 
luminary of the Spanish school Velazquez, I observe that, amongst 
other studies more immediately attached to his art, he perfected 
himself in the propositions of Euclid — " Elements, that prepare the 
" mind in every art and every science, to which the human facul- 
" ties can be applied ; which give a rule and measure for every 
" thing in life, dignify things familiar and familiarise things ab- 
" struse ; invigorate the reason, restrain the licentiousness of fancy, 
" open all the avenues of truth, and give a charm even to contro- 
" versy and dispute — ." I insert this extract, because it is in proof 
to shew that my opinion with respect to the importance of an aca- 
demical education was at this period of life altogether as strong in 
favour of the mathematical studies, as I have expressed it to be in 
the former part of these Memoirs. 

If it were not a ridiculous thing for an author to give his own 
works a good word, I should be tempted to risque it in the instance 
of these two volumes of anecdotes; forasmuch as I bear them in 

grateful 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 451 

grateful remembrance, as having cheered some of my heaviest 

hours, and as being the first productions sent by ine into the 
world after my return out of Spain ; from which period to the pre- 
sent hour, when I review the mass of those many and various 
works, which my literary labours have struck out, I will venture 
to say, that if I have merited any chance of living in the remem- 
brance of posterity, it is in these my latter years I am to look for 
it. 

Before I settled myself at Tunbridge Wells I had written my 
comedy of The Walloons, brought out at Covent Garden theatre, 
where my friend Henderson exhibited a most inimitable specimen 
of his powers in the character of Father Sullivan. If some people 
were ingenious enough to discover any likeness of the Abbe Hussey 
in that sketch, they imputed to me a design, that was never in my 
thoughts. It was Henderson, with whom I was living in the great- 
est intimacy, who* put me upon the project of writing a character 
for him in the cast of Congreve's Double Dealer. — " Make me a fine 
" bold-faced villain," he said, " the direst and the deepest in nature 
" I care not, so you do but give me motives, strong enough to bear 
" me out, and such a prominency of natural character, as shall se- 
" cure me from the contempt of my audience; whatever other pas- 
" sions I can inspire them with will never sink me in their esteem. " 
Upon the same principle I conceived the character of Lord Davc- 
nant for him in The Mysterious Husband, and in that he was not less 
conspicuously excellent. 

He was an actor of uncommon poAvers, and a man of the 

3 u 2 brightest 



452 MEMOIRS OF 

brightest intellect, formed to be the delight of society, and few 
indeed are those men of distinguished talents, who have been more 
prematurely lost to the world, or more lastingly regretted. What 
he was on the stage those, who recollect his FalstafF, Shylock, Sir 
Giles Overreach, and many other parts of the strong cast, can fully 
testify; what he was at his own fire-side and in his social hours, all, 
who were within the circle of his intimates, will not easily forget. 
He had an unceasing flow of spirits, and a boundless fund of hu- 
mour, irresistibly amusing: he also had wit, properly so distin- 
guished, and from the specimens, which I have seen of his sallies 
in verse, levelled at a certain editor of a public print, who had an- 
noyed him with his paragraphs, I am satisfied he had talents at his 
command to have established a very high reputation as a poet. I 
was with him one morning, when he was indisposed, and his physi- 
cian Sir John Eliot paid him a visit. The doctor, as is well known, 
was a merry little being, who talked pretty much at random, and 
oftentimes with no great reverence for the subjects, which he talked 
upon ; upon the present occasion however he came professionally 
to enquire how his medicines had succeeded, and in his northern 
accent demanded of his patient — " Had he taken the palls that he 
" sent him"—" He had"— Well ! and how did they agree ? What 
" had they done ?" — " Wonders, replied Henderson ; I survived 
" them" — " To be sure you did, said the doctor, and you must take 
" more of 'em, and live for ever : I make all my patients immortal"— 
" That is exactly what I am afraid of, doctor, rejoined the patient. 
" I met a lady of my acquaintance yesterday ; you know her very 

" well : 



.. 



a 



a 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 453 

" well: she was in bitter affliction, crying and bewailing herself in 
" a most piteous fashion : I asked what had happened ; a melan- 
" choly event ; her dearest friend was at death's door" — " What is 
" her disease, cried the doctor ?" — " That is the very question I 
asked, replied Henderson ; but she was in no danger from her 
disease; 'twas very slight; a mere excuse for calling in a physi- 
cian" — " Why, what the devil are you talking about, rejoined the 
doctor, if she had called in a physician, and there was no danger 
in the disease, how could she be said to be at death's door ?" — 
Because, said Henderson, she had called in you : every body 
" calls you in ; you dispatch a world of business, and, if you come 
" but once to each, your practice must have made you very rich" — 
" Nay, nay, quoth Sir John, I am not rich in this world ; I lay up 
" my treasure in heaven" — " Then you may take leave of it for ever, 
" rejoined the other, for you have laid it up where you will never 
" find it." 

Henderson's memory was so prodigious, that I dare not risque 
the instance which I could give of it, not thinking myself entitled 
to demand more credit than I should probably be disposed to give. 
In his private character many good and amiable qualities might be 
traced, particularly in his conduct towards an aged mother, to 
whom he bore a truly filial attachment ; and in laying up a provi- 
sion for his wife and daughter he was at least sufficiently careful and 
ceconomical. He was concerned with the elder Sheridan in a course 
of public readings: there could not be a higher treat than to hear 

his 



454 MEMOIRS OF 

his recitations from parts and passages in Tristram Shandy : let him 
broil his dish of sprats, seasoned with the sauce of his pleasantry, 
and succeeded by a desert of Trim and my Uncle Toby, it was an 
entertainment worthy to be enrolled amongst the nodes ccenasque 
Divum. I once heard him read part of a tragedy, and but once ; 
it was in his own parlour, and he ranted most outrageously : he was 
conscious how ill he did it, and laid it aside before he had finished 
it. It was clear he had not studied that most excellent property of 
pitching his voice to the size of the room he was in ; an art, which 
so few readers have, but which Lord Mansfield was allowed to pos- 
sess in perfection. He was an admirable mimic, and in his sallies 
of this sort he invented speeches and dialogues, so perfectly appro- 
priate to the characters he was displaying, that I don't doubt but 
many good sayings have been given to the persons he made free 
with, which being fastened on them by him in a frolic, have stuck 
to them ever since, and perhaps gone down to posterity amongst 
their memorabilia. If there was any body now qualified to draw a 
parallel between the characters of Foote and Henderson, I don't 
pretend to say how the men of wit and humour might divide the 
laurel between them, but in this all men would agree that poor 
Foote attached to himself very few true friends, and Henderson very 
many, and those highly respectable, men virtuous in their lives, 
and enlightened in their understandings. Foote, vain, extravagant, 
embarrassed, led a wild and thoughtless course of life, yet when 
death approached him, he shrunk back into himself, saw and con- 
fessed 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 455 

fessed his errors, and I have reason to believe was truly penitent. 
Henderson's conduct through life was uniformly decorous, and in 
the concluding stage of it exemplarily devout. 

I have said he played the part of Lord Davenant in my drama 
of The Mysterious Husband : I believe it was upon the last night of 
its representation, the King and Queen being present, when Hen- 
derson's exertions in the concluding scene, where he dies upon the 
stage, occasioned certain agitations, which have thenceforward 
rendered spectacles of that sort very properly ineligible. The late 
Mrs. Pope was very successful and impressive in the character of 
Lady Davenant, which I am inclined to consider as the best 
female part I have ever tendered to the stage, but as the play is 
printed and before the public, the public judgment will decide 
upon it. 

Though I continued to amuse my fancy with dramatic compo- 
sition, my chief attention was bestowed upon that body of original 
essays, which compose the volumes of The Observer. I first printed 
two octavos experimentally at our press in Tunbridge Wells ; the 
execution was so incorrect, that I stopped the impression as soon 
as I had engaged my friend Mr. Charles Dilly to undertake the 
reprinting of it. He gave it a form and shape fit to meet the public 
eye, and the sale was encouraging. I added to the collection very 
largely, and it appeared in a new edition of five volumes : when 
these were out of print, I made a fresh arrangement of the essays, 
and incorporating my entire translation of The Clouds, we edited 
the work thus modelled in six volumes, and these being now attach- 
ed 



456 MEMOIRS OF 

ed to the great edition of the British Essayists, I consider the Ob- 
server as fairly enrolled amongst the standard classics of our native 
language. This work therefore has obtained for itself an inheri- 
tance ; it is fairly off my hands, and what I have to say about it 
will be confined to a few simple facts ; I had no acknowledgments 
to make in my concluding essay, for I had received no aid or assist- 
ance from any man living. Every page and paragraph, except 
what is avowed quotation, I am singly responsible for. My much 
esteemed friend Richard Sharp Esquire, now of Mark-Lane, had 
the kindness, during my absence from town to correct the sheets as 
they came from the press; had that judicious friend corrected them 
before they went to the press, they would have been profited by 
the reform of many more than typographical errors j but the appro- 
bation he was pleased to bestow upon that portion of the work, 
which passed under his inspection, was a very sensible support to 
me in the prosecution of it ; for though I was aware what allow- 
ances I had to make for his candid disposition to commend, I had 
too much confidence in his sincerity to suppose him capable of com- 
plimenting me against his judgment or his conscience. 

I have been suspected of taking stories out of Spanish authors* 
and'weaving them into some of these essays as my own without ac- 
knowledging the plagiarism. One of my reviewers instances the 
story of Nicolas Pedrosa, and roundly asserts that from internal evi- 
dence it must be of Spanish construction, and from these assumed 
premises leaves me to abide the odium of the inference. To this I 
answer with the most solemn appeal to truth and honour, that I am 

indebted 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 457 

indebted to no author whatever, Spanish or other, for a single hint, 
idea or suggestion of an incident in the story of Pedrosa, nor in 
that of the Misanthrope, nor in any other, which the work contains. 
In the narrative of the Portuguese, who was brought before the In- 
quisition, what I say of it as being matter of tradition, which I 
collected on the spot, is a mere fiction to give an air of credibility 
and horror to the tale : the whole, without exception of a syllable, 
is absolute and entire invention. 

I take credit to myself for the character of Abraham Abrahams ; 
I wrote it upon principle, thinking it high time that something 
should be done for a persecuted race : I seconded my appeal to the 
charity of mankind by the character of Sheva, which I copied from 
this of Abrahams. The public prints gave the Jews credit for their 
sensibility in acknowledging my well-intended services ; my friends 
gave me joy of honorary presents, and some even accused me of in- 
gratitude for not making public my thanks for their munificence. I 
will speak plainly on this point; I do most heartily wish they had 
flattered me with some token, however small, of which I might 
have said this is a tribute to my philanthropy, and delivered it down 
to my children, as my beloved father did to me his badge of favour 
from the citizens of Dublin: but not a word from the lips, not a line 
did I ever receive from the pen of any Jew, though I have found 
myself in company with many of their nation; and in this perhaps 
the gentlemen are quite right, whilst I had formed expectations, 
that were quite wrong ; for if I have said for them only what they 
deserve, why should I be thanked for it ? But if I have said more, 

3 n much 



458 MEMOIRS OF 

much more, than they deserve, can they do a wiser thing than hold 
their tongues ? 

It is reported of me, and very generally believed, that I com- 
pose with great rapidity. I must own the mass of my writings, (of 
which the world has not seen more than half) might seem to war- 
rant that report; but it is only true in some particular instances, 
not in the general; if it were, I should not be disinclined to avail 
myself of so good an apology for my many errors and inaccuracies, 
or of so good a proof of the fertility and vivacity of my fancy. The 
fact is, that every hour in the day is my hour for study, and that a 
minute rarely passes, in which I am absolutely idle ; in short, I 
never do nothing. Nature has given me the hereditary blessing of 
a constitutional and habitual temperance, that revolts against ex- 
cess of any sort, and never suffers appetite to load the frame : I am 
accordingly as fit to resume my book or my pen the instant after 
my meal as I was in the freshest hours of the morning. I never 
have been accustomed to retire to my study for silence and medi- 
tation ; in fact my book-room at Tunbridge Wells was occupied as 
a bed room, and what books I had occasion to consult I brought 
down to the common sitting-room, where in company with my wife 
and family, (neither interrupting them, nor interrupted by them) I 
wrote The Observer or whatever else I had in hand. 

I think it cannot be supposed but that the composition of those 
essays must have been a work of time and labour ; I trust there is 
internal evidence of that, particularly in that portion of it, which 
professes to review the literary age of Greece, and gives a history 

of 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 459 

of the Athenian stage. That series of papers will I hope remain as 
a monument of my industry in collecting materials, and of my cor- 
rectness in disposing them; and when I lay to my heart the conso- 
lation I derive from the honours now bestowed upon me at the close 
of my career by one, who is only in the first outset of his, what have 
I not to augur for myself, when he who starts with such auspicious 
promise has been pleased to take my fame in hand, and link it to 
his own ? If any of my readers are yet to seek for the author, to 
whom I allude, the Comicorum Graccorum fragmenta quaedam will 
lead them to his name, and him to their respect. 

If I cannot resist the gratification of inserting the paragraph, 
(page 7) which places my dim lamp between those brilliant stars of 
classic lustre, Richard Bentley and Richard Porson, am I to be set 
down as a conceited vain old man ? Let it be so ! I can't help it, 
and in truth I don't much care about it. Thou oh the followino- ex- 

o o 

tract may be the weakest thing, that Mr. Robert Walpole, of Tri- 
nity College, Cambridge, ever has written, or ever shall write, it 
will outlive the strongest thing, that can be said against it, and I 
will therefore arrest and incorporate it, as follows — Aliunde qito</i/c 
hand exiguum ornamentum huic volumini accessit, siquidem Cumber- 
landius nostras amice benevoleque permisit, ut versiones suas quorundam 
fragmentorum, exquisitas sane illas, miraquc elegentid conditas et coin- 
mendatas hue transferrin. 

If there is. any man, who has reached my ago. ami written as 
much as I have with as little recompense for it, who can seriously 
condemn me, to his sentence I submit; as for the sneercrs and sub- 

3x2 critics, 



460 MEMOIRS OF 

critics, who can neither write themselves, nor feel for those who 
do, they are welcome to make the most of it. 

My publisher informs me that enquiries are made of him, if I 
have it in design to translate more comedies of Aristophanes, and 
that these enquiries are accompanied by wishes for my undertaking 
it. I am flattered by the honour, which these gentlemen confer 
upon me, but the version of The Clouds cost me much time and 
trouble; I have no right to reckon upon much more time for 
any thing, and it is very greatly my wish to collect and revise the 
whole of my unpublished, and above all of my unacted dramas, 
which are very numerous ; I have also a work far advanced, though 
put aside during the writing of these Memoirs, which, if life is 
granted to me, I shall be anxious to complete. I must further ob- 
serve that there is but one more comedy in our volume of Aristo- 
phanes, viz. The Plutus, which I could be tempted to translate. 

As I hope I have already given a sufficient answer to those, who 
were offended with my treatment of Socrates, I have nothing more 
to say of The Observer, or its author. 

Henderson acted in one other play of my writing for his benefit, 
and took the part of The Arab, which gave its title to the tragedy. 
I have now in my mind's eye the look he gave me, so comically 
conscious of taking what his judgment told him he ought to refuse, 
when I put into his hand my tributary guineas for the few places I 
had taken in his theatre — " If I were not the most covetous dog in 
" creation, he cried, I should not take your money ; but I cannot 
" help it." I gave up my tragedy to his use for one night only, and 

have 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 461 

c 

have never put it to any use since. His death soon followed, and he 
was hurried to the grave in the vigour of" his talents, and the meri- 
dian of his fame. 

The late Mrs. Pope, then Miss Young, performed a part in 
The Arab, and I find an epilogue, which I presume she spoke, 
though of this I am not certain. I discovered it amongst my pa- 
pers, and as I flatter myself there are some points in it not amiss, 
I take the liberty of inserting it. 

" Epilogue to the Arab. 
" Miss Young. 

" Yes, 'tis as 1 predicted— There you sit 

" Expecting some smart relisher of wit. 

" Why, 'tis a delicacy out of season 

" Sirs, have some conscience ! ladies, hear some reason ! 

" With your accustom' d grace you come to share 

" Your humble actor's annual bill of fare ; 

" But for wit, take it how he will, I tell you, 

" All have not Falstaff's brains, that have his belly. 

" Wit is not all men's money ; when you've bought it, 

« Look at your lot. You're trick'd. Who could have thought it ? 

" Read it, 'tis folly ; court it, a coquette ; 

" Wed it, a libertine — you're fairly met. 

" No sex, age, country, character, nor clime, 

" No rank commands it; it obeys no time ; 

" Fear'd, lov'd, and hated ; prais'd, ador'd and curs'd, 

" The very best of all things and the worst ; 

From 



462 MEMOIRS OF 

<{ From this extreme to that for ever huii'd, 

" The idol and the outlaw of the world, 

" In France, Spain, England, Italy and Greece, 

*' The joy, plague, pride and foot-ball of caprice. 

" Is it in that man's face, who looks so wise 
" With lips half-opened and. with half-shut eyes ? 
" Silent grimace ! — Flows it from this man's tongue, 
" With quaint conceits and punning quibbles hung ? 
" A nauseous counterfeit ! — Hark ! now I hear it — 
" Rank infidelity !— I cannot bear it. 
" See where her tea-table Vanessa spreads ! 
" A motley groupe of heterogeneous heads 
" Gathers around ; the goddess in a cloud 
" Of incense sits amidst the adoring crowd , 
" So many smiles, nods, simpers she dispenses 
" Instead of five you'd think she'd fifteen senses ; 
" Alike impatient all at once to shine, 
" Eager they plunge in wit's unfathom'd mine : 
" Deep underneath the stubborn ore remains, 
" The paltry tin breaks up, and mocks their pains. 

" Ask wit of me ! Oh monstrous, I declare 
" You might as well ask it of my Lord Mayor : 
" Require it in an epilogue ! a road 
" As track'd and trodden as a birth-day ode ; 
" Oh, rather turn to those malicious elves, 
" Who see it in no mortal but themselves ; 



Our 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 463 

" Our gratitude is all we have to give, 
" And that we trust your candour will receive." 
Garrick died also, and was followed to the Abbey by a long 
extended train of friends, illustrious for their rank and genius, who 
truly mourned a man, so perfect in his art, that nature hath not yet 
produced an actor, worthy to be called his second. I saw old 
Samuel Johnson standing beside his grave, at the foot of Shakes- 
peare's monument, and bathed in tears : a few succeeding years 
laid him in earth, and though the marble shall preserve for ages the 
exact resemblance of- his form and features, his own strong pen has 
pictured out a transcript of his mind, that shall outlive that and the 
very language, which he laboured to perpetuate. Johnson's best 
days were dark, and only, when his life was far in the decline, he 
enjoyed a gleam of fortune long withheld. Compare him with his 
countryman and contemporary last-mentioned, and it will be one 
instance amongst many, that the man, who only brings the Muse's 
bantlings into the world has a better lot in it, than he, who has the 
credit of begetting them. 

Reynolds the friend of both these worthies, had a measure of 
prosperity amply dealt out to him ; he sunned himself in an un- 
clouded sky, and his Muse, that gave him a pallet dressed by all 
the Graces, brought him also a cornu-copioe rich and full as Flora, 
Ceres and Bacchus could conspire to make it. His hearse was also 
followed by a noble cavalcade of mourners, many of whom, I dare 
believe, left better faces hanging by the wall, than those they car- 
ried with them to his funeral. When he was lost to the world, his 

death 



464 MEMOIRS OF 

death was the dispersion of a bright and luminous circle of ingenious 
friends, Avhom the elegance of his manners, the equability of his 
temper and the attraction of his talents had caused to assemble 
round him as the centre of their society. In all the most engaging 
graces of his heart; indisposition, attitude, employment, character 
of his figures, and above all in giving mind and meaning to his 
portraits, if I were to say Sir Joshua never was excelled, I am in- 
clined to believe so many better opinions would be with me, that I 
should not be found to have said too much. 

Romney in the mean time shy, private, studious and contem- 
plative ; conscious of all the disadvantages and privations of a very 
stinted education; of a habit naturally hypochondriac, with aspen 
nerves, that ever} 7 breath could ruffle, was at once in art the rival, 
and in nature the very contrast of Sir Joshua. A man of few wants, 
strict oeconomy and with no dislike to money, he had opportunities 
enough to enrich him even to satiety, but he was at once so eager 
to begin, and so slow in finishing his portraits, that he was for ever 
disappointed of receiving payment for thein by the casualties and 
revolutions in the families they were designed for, so many of his 
sitters were killed off, so many favourite ladies were dismissed, so 
many fond wives divorced, before he would bestow half an hour's 
pains upon their petticoats, that his unsaleable stock was immense, 
whilst with a little more regularity and decision he would have more 
than doubled his fortune, and escaped an infinitude of petty trou- 
bles, that disturbed his temper. At length exhausted rather by the 
languor than by the labour of his mind, this admirable artist re- 
tired 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 465 

tired to his native county in the north of England, and there, after 
hovering between life and death, neither wholly deprived of the 
one, nor completely rescued by the other, he continued to decline, 
till at last he sunk into a distant and inglorious grave, fortunate 
alone in this, that his fame is consigned to the protection of Mr. 
Hayley, from whom the world expects his history: there if he says 
no more of him, than that he was at least as good a painter as Mi. 
Cowperwas a poet, he will say enough; and if his readers see the 
parallel in the light that I do, they will not think that he shall have 
said too much. 

When I first knew Romney, he was poorly lodged in Newport- 
Street, and painted at the small price of eight guineas for a three- 
quarters portrait : I sate to him, and was the first, who encouraged 
him to advance his terms, by paying him ten guineas for his per- 
formance. I brought Garrick to see his pictures, hoping to interest 
him in his favour ; a large family piece unluckily arrested his atten- 
tion ; a gentleman in a close-buckled bob wig and a scarlet waist- 
coat laced with gold, with his wife and children, (some sitting, some 
standing) had taken possession of some yards of canvass very much, 
as it appeared, to their own satisfaction, for they were perfectly 
amused in a contented abstinence from all thought or action. Upon 
this unfortunate groupe when Garrick had fixed his lynx's eyes, he 
began to put himself into the attitude of the gentleman, and turning 
to Mr. Romney—" Upon my word, Sir, said he, this is a very regu- 
" lar well-ordered family, and that is a very bright well-rubbed ma- 
" hogany table, at which that motherly good lady is sitting, and 

3 o " this 



466 MEMOIRS OF 

" this worthy gentleman in the scarlet waistcoat is doubtless a very 
"excellent subject to the state I mean, (if all these are his chil- 
" dren) but not for your art, Mr. Romney, if you mean to pursue it 
" with that success, which I hope will attend you — ." The modest 
artist took the hint, as it was meant, in good part, and turned his 
family with their faces to the wall. When Romney produced my 
portrait, not yet finished — It was very well, Garrick observed ; " That 
" is very like my friend, and that blue coat with a red cape is very 
" like the coat he has on, but you must give him something to do ; 
" put a pen in his hand, a paper on his table, and make him a poet; 
" if you can once set him down well to his writing, who knows but 
" in time he may write something in your praise." These words 
were not absolutely un prophetical ; I maintained a friendship for 
Romney to his death ; he was uniformly kind and affectionate to 
me, and certainly I was zealous in my services to him. After his 
death I wrote a short account of him, which was published in a 
magazine ; I did my best, but must confess I should not have un- 
dertaken it but at the desire of my excellent friend Mr. Green of 
Bedford-Square, and being further urged to it by the wishes of two 
other valuable friends Mr. Long of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Mr. 
Daniel Braythwaite, whom I sincerely esteem, it was not for me to 
hesitate, especially as I was not then informed of Mr. Hayley's 
purpose to take that work upon himself. 

Here I am tempted to insert a few lines, which about this time I 
put together, more perhaps for the purpose of speaking civilly of 
Mr. Romney than for any other use, that I could put them to ; but 

as 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 467 

as I find there is honorable mention made of Sir Joshua Reynolds 
also, I give the whole copy as a further proof, that neither in verse 
or prose did I ever fail to speak of that celebrated painter but with 
the respect so justly due. 

" When Gothic rage had put the arts to flight 
" And wrapt the world in universal night, 
" When the dire northern swarm with seas of blood 
" Had drown' d creation in a second flood, 
" When all was void, disconsolate and dark, 
" Rome in her ashes found one latent spark, 
" She, not unmindful of her ancient name, 
" Nurs'd her last hope and fed the sacred flame ; 
" Still as it grew, new streams of orient light 

" Beam'd on the world and cheer'd the fainting sight ; 

© © * 

" Rous'd from the tombs of the illustrious dead 
" Immortal science rear'd her mournful head ; 
" And mourn she shall to time's extremest hour 
" The dire effects of Omar's savage power, 
" When rigid Amrou's too obedient hand 
" Made Alexandria blaze at his command ; 
" Six months he fed the sacrilegious flame 
" With the stor'd volumes of recorded fame : 
" There died all memory of the great and good, 
" Then Greece and Rome were finally subdu'd. 

" Yet monkish ignorance had not quite effae'd 
" All that the chissel wrought, the pencil trae'd ; 

S o 2 " Some 



468 MEMOIRS OF 

" Some precious reliques of the ancient hoard 
" Or happy chance, or curious search restor'd ; 
" The wondering artist kindled as he gaz'd, 
" And caught perfection from the work he prais'd. 

" Of painters then the celebrated race 
" Rose into fame with each attendant grace ; 
" Still, as it spread, the wonder-dealing art 
" Improv'd the manners and reformed the heart ; 
" Darkness dispers'd and Italy became 
" Once more the seat of elegance and fame. 

" Late, very late, on this sequester'd isle 
" The heav'n-descended art was seen to smile ; 
" Seldom she came to this storm-beaten coast, 
" And short her stay, just seen, admir'd and lost : 
" Reynolds at length, her favourite suitor, bore 
" The blushing stranger to his native shore ; 
" He by no mean, no selfish motives sway'd 
" To public view held forth the liberal maid, 
" Call'd his admiring countrymen around, 
" Freely declard what raptures he had found; 
" Told them that merit would alike impart 
" To him or them a passage to her heart. 
" Rous'd at the call, all came to view her charms, 
" All press'd, all strove to clasp her in their arms ; 
" See Coats and Dance and Gainsborough seize the spoil, 
" And ready Mortimer that laughs at toil ; 

" Crown d 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 469 

" Crown'd with fresh roses graceful Humphry stands, 

" While beauty grows immortal from his hands ; 

" Stubbs like a lion springs upon his prey, 

" With bold eccentric Wright that hates the day : 

" Familiar Zoffany with comic art, 

" And West great painter of the human heart. 

" These and yet more unnam'd that to our eyes 

" Bid lawns and groves and tow'ring mountains rise, 

" Point the bold rock or stretch the bursting sail, 

" Smooth the calm sea, or drive th' impetuous gale : 

« Some hunt 'midst fruit and flowery wreaths for fame, 

" And Elmer springs it in the feather'd game. 

" Apart and bending o'er the azure tide, 
" With heavenly Contemplation by his side, 
" A pensive artist stands— in thoughtful mood, 
" With downcast looks he eyes the ebbing flood ; 
" No wild ambition swells his temperate heart, 
" Himself as pure, as patient as his art, 
" Nor sullen sorrow, nor intemperate joy 
" The even tenour of his thoughts destroy, 
" An undistinguish'd candidate for fame, 
" At once his country's glory and its shame : 
" Rouse then at length, with honest pride inspir'd, 
" Romney, advance! be known and be admir'd. 
I perceive I must resume the immediate subject of these Me- 
moirs ; it is truly a relief to me, when I am called off from it, for 

unvaried 



470 MEMOIRS OF 

unvaried egotism would be a toil too heavy for my mind. When I 
attempt to look into the mass of my productions, I can keep no 
order in the enumeration of them ; I have not patience to arrange 
them according to their dates ; I believe I have written at least fifty 
dramas published and unpublished. Amongst the latter of these 
there are some, which in my sincere opinion are better than most, 
which have yet seen the light : they certainly have had the advan- 
tages of a more mature correction. When I went to Spain I left in 
Mr. Harris's hands a tragedy on the subject of The Elder Brutus; 
the temper of the times was by no means suited to the character 
of the play ; I have never written any drama so much to my own 
satisfaction, and my partiality to it has been flattered by the judg- 
ment of several, who have read it. I have written dramas on the 
stories of the False Demetrius, of Tiberius in Caprece, and a tragedy 
on a plot purely inventive, which I entitled Torrendal ; these with 
several others may in time to come, if life shall be continued to me, 
be formed into a collection and submitted to the public. 

About the time, at which my story points, my tragedy of The 
Carmelite was acted at Drury-Lane, and most ably supported by 
Mrs. Siddons, who took the part of the Lady of Saint Valori, and 
also spoke the Epilogue. She played inimitably, and in those 
days, when only men and women trode the stage, the public were 
contented with what was perfect in nature, and of course admired 
and applauded Mrs. Siddons: they could then also see merit in Mr. 
Kemble, who was in the commencement of his career, and appear- 
ed in the character of the youthful Montgomeri : the audiences of 

that 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 471 

that time did not think the worse of him because he had reached 
the age of manhood, and appeared before them in the full stature 
and complete maturity of one of the finest forms, that probably 
was ever exhibited upon a public stage. A revolution since then 
has taken place, a caprice, as ridiculous as it is extraordinary, and 
a general act of superannuation has gone forth against every male 
performer, that has a beard. How I am to style this young child 
of fortune, this adopted favourite of the public, I don't rightly 
know ; the bills of Covent-Carden announce him as Master Betty, 
those of Drury-Lane as the Young Roscius. Roscius, as I believe 
upon the authority of Shakespear, was an actor in Rome, and Cicero, 
who admired him, made a speech in his praise: all this of course is 
very right on both sides, and exactly as it should be. Mr. Harris 
announces him to the old women in the galleries in a phrase, that 
is familiar to them ; whilst Mr. Sheridan, presenting him to the 
senators in the boxes by the style and title of Roscius, fails perhaps 
in his little representative of the great Roman actor, but perfectly 
succeeds in his own similitude to the eloquent Roman orator. In 
the mean time my friend Smith of Bury, with all that zeal for merit, 
which is natural to him, marries him to Melpomene with the ring of 
Garrick, and strewing roses of Parnassus on the nuptial couch, 
crowns happy Master Betty, alias Young Roscius, with a never- 
fading chaplet of immortal verse 

And now when death dissolves his mortal frame, 
His soul shall mount to heavn from whence it came, 
Earth keep his ashes, verse preserve his fame. 

How 



472 MEMOIRS OF 

How delicious to be praised and panegerised in sueh a style; to 
be caressed by dukes, and (which is better) by the daughters of 
dukes, flattered by wits, feasted by aldermen, stuck up in the win- 
dows of the printshops, and set astride (as these eyes have seen 
him) upon the cut-water of a privateer, like the tutelary genius of 
the British flag. 

What encouragements doth this great enlightened nation hold 
forth to merit ? What a consolatory reflection must it be to the su- 
perannuated yellow admirals of the stage, that when they shall ar- 
rive at second childhood, they may still have a chance to arrive at 
honours second only to these ! I declare I saw with surprise a man, 
who led about a bear to dance for the edification of the public, 
lose all his popularity in the street, where this exquisite young gen- 
tleman has his lodging; the people ran to see him at the window, 
and left the bear and the bear-leader in a solitude. I saw this ex- 
quisite young gentleman, whilst I paced the streets on foot, wafted 
to his morning's rehearsal in a vehicle, that to my vulgar optics 
seemed to wear upon its polished doors the ensign of a ducal crown ; 
I looked to see if haply John Kemble were on the braces, or Cooke 
perchance behind the coach ; I saw the lacquies at their post, but 
Glenalvon was not there : I found John Kemble sick at home — I 

said within myself 

Oh ! what a time have you chose out, brave Cuius, 
To wear a kerchief? Would you were not sick ! 
We shall have a second influx of the pigmies ; they will pour 
upon us in multitudes innumerable as a shoal of sprats, and when 

at 



. RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 473 

« 

at last we have nothing else but such small fry to feed on, an epi- 
demic nausea will take place. 

There are intervals in fevers ; there are lucid moments in mad- 
ness ; even folly cannot keep possession of the mind for ever. It is 
very natural to encourage rising genius, it is highly commendable 
to foster its first shoots ; we admire and caress a clever school boy, 
but we should do very ill to turn his master out of his office and 
put him into it. If the theatres persist in their puerilities, they will 
find themselves very shortly in the predicament of an ingenious me- 
chanic, whom I remember in my younger daj's, and whose story I 
will briefly relate, in hopes it may be a warning to them. 

This very ingenious artist, when Mr. Rich the Harlequin wa* 
the great dramatic author of his time, and wrote successfully for 
the stage, contrived and executed a most delicious serpent for one 
of those inimitable productions, in which Mr. Rich, justly disdain- 
ing the weak aid of language, had selected the classical fable (if I 
rightly recollect it) of Orpheus and Eurydice, and having conceived 
a very capital part for the serpent, was justly anxious to provide 
himself with a performer, who could support a character of that 
consequence with credit to himself and to his author. The event 
answered his most ardent hopes ; nothing could be more perfect in 
his entrances and exits, nothing ever crawled across the stage with 
more accomplished sinuosity than this enchanting serpent ; every 
soul was charmed with its performance ; it twirled and twisted and 
wriggled itself about in so divine a manner, the whole world was 
ravished with the lovely snake : nobles and non-nobles, rich and 

3 p poor, 



474 MEMOIRS OF 

poor, old and young, reps and demi-reps flocked to see it, and ad- 
mire it. The artist, who had been the master of the movement, 
was intoxicated with his success; he turned his hands and head to 
nothing else but serpents ; he made them of all sizes, they crawled 
about his shop as if he had been chief snake-catcher to the furies : 
the public curiosity was satisfied with one serpent, and he had nests 
of them yet unsold ; his stock laid dead upon his hands, his trade 
was lost, and the man was ruined, bankrupt and undone. 

Here it occurs to me that in one of my preceding pages I have 
promised to address a parting word to my brethren and contempo- 
raries in the dramatic line. If what I have now been saying coin- 
cides with their opinions, I have said enough ; if it does not, what 
I might add to it would be all too much, and the experience of 
grey hairs would be in vain opposed to the prejudices of green 
heads. May success attend them in their efforts, whenever they 
shall seriously address them to the study of the legitimate drama, 
and the restoration of good taste ! There is no lack of genius in the 
nation; I therefore will not totally despair, old as I am, of living 
still to witness the commencement of a brighter sera. 

About this time I undertook the hardy task of differing in opi- 
nion from one of the ablest scholars and finest writers in the king- 
dom, and controverted the proposal of the Bishop of Llandaff for 
equalizing the revenues of the hierarchy and dignitaries of the 
church established. I still think I had the best of the argument, 
and that his lordship did a wiser thing in declining the controversy, 
than in throwing out the proposal. I have read a charge of the 

bishop's 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 475 

bishop's to the clergy of his diocese for enforcing many points of 
discipline, and enjoining residence. As his lordship neither resides 
in his diocese, nor executes the important duty of Regius Professor 
of Divinity in person, I am not informed whether his clergy took their 
rule of conduct from his precept, or from his example ; but I take 
for granted that those, whose poverty confined them to their par- 
sonages, did not stray from home, and that those, whose means 
enabled them to visit other places, did not want a precedent to 
refer to for their apology. 

As I have dealt extremely little in anonymous publications, I 
may as well confess mj r self in this place the author of a pamphlet 
entitled Curtius rescued from the Gulph. I conceived that Doctor 
Parr had hit an unoffending gentleman too hard, by launching a 
huge fragment of Greek at his defenceless head. The subject was 
started, and the exterminating weapon produced at one of my friend 
Dilly's literary dinners; there were several gentlemen present better 
armed for the encounter than myself, but the lot fell upon me to 
turn out against Ajax. I made as good a fight as I could, and 
rummaged my indexes for quotations, which I crammed into my 
artillery as thick as grape shot, and in mere sport fired them off 
against a rock invulnerable as the armour of Achilles. It was very 
well observed by my friend Mr. Dilly upon the profusion of quota- 
tions, which some writers affectedly make use of, that he knew a 
presbyterian parson, who for eighteen-pence would furnish any pain- 
phleteer with as many scraps of Greek and Latin, as would pass bim 
off for an accomplished classic. I simply discharge a debt of gra- 

3 p 2 titude, 



476 MEMOIRS OF 

tude, justly due, when I acknowledge the great and frequent grati- 
fications I have received at the hospitable board of the worthy 
friend last-mentioned, who whilst he conducted upon principles of the 
strictest integrity the extensive business carried on at his house in the 
Poultry, kept a table ever open to the patrons and pursuers of lite- 
rature, which was so administered as to draw the best circles toge- 
ther, and to put them most completely at their ease. No man 
ever understood this better, and few ever practised it with such 
success, or on so large a scale : it was done without parade, and in 
that consisted the peculiar air of comfort and repose, which charac- 
terised those meetings : hence it came to pass that men of genius 
and learning resorted to them with delight, and here it was that 
they were to be found divested of reserve, and in their happiest mo- 
ments. Under this roof the biographer of Johnson, and the plea- 
sant tourist to Corsica and the Hebrides, passed many jovial joyous 
hours ; here he has located some of the liveliest scenes and most bril- 
liant passages in his entertaining anecdotes of his friend Samuel 
Johnson, who yet lives and speaks in him. The book of Bos well, 
is, ever as the year comes round, my winter-evening's entertain- 
ment : I loved the man ; he had great convivial powers and an 
inexhaustible fund of good humour in society; no body could de- 
tail the spirit of a conversation in the true style and character of 
the parties more happily than my friend James Boswell, especially 
when his vivacity was excited, and his heart exhilarated by the 
circulation of the glass, and the grateful odour of a well-broiled 
lobster. 

To 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 4 ?t 

To these parties I can trace my first impressions of esteem for 
certain characters, whose merits are above my praise, and of whose 
friendship I have still to boast. From Mr. Ditty's hospitality 1 de- 
rive not only the recollection of pleasure past, hut the enjoyment of 
happiness yet in my possession. Death has not struck so deep into 
that circle, but that some are left, whose names are dear to society, 
whom I have still to number amongst my living friends, to whom I 
can resort and find myself not lost to their remembrance. Our hos- 
pitable host, retired from business, still greets me with a friendly 
welcome : in the company of the worthy Braythwaite I can enjoy 
the contemplation of a man universally beloved, full indeed of 
years, but warm in feeling, unimpaired in faculties and glowing 
with benevolence. 

I can visit the justly-admired author of The Pleasures of Memory, 
and find myself with a friend, who together with the brightest genius 
possesses elegance of manners and excellence of heart. He tells 
me he remembers the day of our first meeting at Mr. Dilly's ; I also 
remember it, and though his modest unassuming nature held back 
and shrunk from all appearances of ostentation and display of ta- 
lents, yet even then I take credit for discovering a promise of good 
things to come, and suspected him of holding secret commerce with 
the Muse, before the proof appeared in shape of one of the most 
beautiful and harmonious poems in our language. I do not say 
that he has not ornamented the age he lives in, though he were to 
stop where he is, but I hope he will not so totally deliver himself 
over to the Arts as to neglect the Muses ; and I now publicly call 

upon 



478 MEMOIRS OF 

upon Samuel Rogers to answer to his name, and stand forth in the 
title page of some future work that shall be in substance greater, in 
dignity of subject more sublime, and in purity of versification not 
less charming than his poem above-mentioned. 

My good and worthy friend Mr. Sharpe has made himself in some 
degree responsible to the public, for having been the first to suggest 
to me the idea of writing this huge volume of my Memoirs ; he 
knows I was not easily encouraged to believe my history could be 
made interesting to the readers of it, and in truth opinion less au- 
thoritative than his would not have prevailed with me to commit 
myself to the undertaking. Neither he nor I however at that time 
had any thought of publishing before my death; in proof of which 
I have luckily laid my hand upon the following lines amongst the 
chaos of my manuscripts, which will shew that I made suit to him 
to protect this and other reliques of my pen, when I had paid the 
debt of nature— — 

" To Richard Sharpe Esquire of Mark-Lane." 

" If rhyme e'er spoke the language of the heart, 

" Or truth employed the measured phrase of art, 

" Believe me, Sharpe, this verse, which smoothly flows, 

" Hath all the rough sincerity of prose. 

" False flattering words from eager lips may fly, 

" But who can pause to harmonize a lie ? 

" Or e'er he made the jingling couplet chime, 

'* Conscience would start and reprobate the rhyme. 

If 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 479 

" If then 'twere merely to entrap your ear 

" I call'd you friend, and pledg'd myself sincere, 

" Genius would shudder at the base design, 

" And my hand tremble as I shap'd the line. 

" Poets oft times are tickled with a word, 

" That gaily glitters at the festive board, 

" And many a man, my judgment can't approve, 

" Hath trick'd my foolish fancy of its love ; 

" For every foible natural to my race 

" Finds for a time with me some fleeting place ; 

" But occupants so weak have no controul, 

" No fix'd and legal tenure in my soul, 

" Nor will my reason quit the faithful clue, 

" That points to truth, to virtue and to you. 

" In the vicissitudes of life we find 
" Strange turns and twinings in the human mind, 
" And he, who seeks consistency of plan, 
" Is little vers'd in the great map of man ; 
" The wider still the sphere in which we live, 
" The more our calls to suffer and forgive : 
" But from the hour (and many years are past) 
" From the first hour I knew you to the last, 
" Through every scene, self-center'd and at rest, 
" Your steady character hath stood the test, 
" No rash conceits divert your solid thought, 
" By patience foster'd and with candour fraught ; 

" Mild 



48Q MEMOIRS OF 

u Mild in opinion, but of sou] sincere, 

" And only to the foes of truth severe, 

" So unobtrusive is your wisdom's tone, 

" Your converts hear and fancy it their own, 

i% With hand so fine you probe the festering mind, 

** You heal our wounds, and leave no sore behind. 

" Now say, my friend — but e'er you touch the task 
" Weigh well the burden of the boon I ask— 
" Say, when the pulses of this heart shall cease, 
'* And my soul quits her cares to seek her peace, 
" Will your zeal prompt you to protect the name 
" Of one not totally unknown to fame ? 
" Will you, who only can the place supply 
" Of a lost son, befriend my progeny ? 
" For when the wreck goes down there will be found 
" Some remnants of the freight to float around, 
" Some that long time hath almost snatch'd from sight, 
" And more unseen, that struggle for the light; 
" And sure I am the stage will not refuse, 
" To lift her curtain for my widow'd Muse, 
" Nor will her hearers less indulgent be, 
" When that last curtain shall be dropt on me." 
I have fairly given the reasons, that prevailed with me for pub- 
lishing these Memoirs in my life time, and 1 believe every man, 
that knows them, will acknowledge they are reasons sufficiently 
cogent. My friend Sharpe very kindly acceded to the suit above- 
made: 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 481 

made ; Mr. Rogers has since joined him in the task, and Sir 
James Bland Burges, of whose friendship I have had many and 
most convincing proofs, has with the candour, that is natural to an 
enlightened mind, generously engaged to take his share in select- 
ing and arranging the miscellaneous farrago, that will be found 
in my drawers, after my body has been committed to the earth. 
To these three friends I devote this task, and upon their judgment 
I rely for the publication or suppression of what they may find 
amongst my literary relics; they are all much younger men than 
I am, and I pray God, that death, who cannot long spare me, will 
not draw those arrows from his quiver, which fate has destined 
to extinguish them, till they have completed a career equal at 
least in length to mine, crowned with more fame, and graced 
with much more fortune and prosperity. I know that they will 
do what they have said, and faithfully protect my posthumous 
reputation, as I have been a faithful friend to them and to their 
living works. 

The heroic poem of Richard the First is truly a very extraordi- 
nary work. I am a witness to the extreme rapidity, with which my 
friend the author wrote it. It far exceeded the supposed rate, at 
which Pope translated Homer, which being at fifty lines per day, 
Samuel Johnson hesitates to give credit to. If to this we take into 
account the peculiar construction of the stanza, every one of which 
involves four, three and two terminations in rhyme, and which must 
naturally have enhanced the labour of the poet in a very consi- 
derable degree, I am astonished at the facility, with which Sir 

3 q James 



482 MEMOIRS OF 

James has triumphed over the difficulties, that he chose to impose 
upon himself, and must confess his Muse moves gracefully in her 
fetters. I was greatly pleased to see that the learned and judicious 
Mr. Todd in his late edition of Spenser has spoken of this poem in 
such handsome terms, as I can never meet a stronger confirmation 
of my own opinion, than when I find it coinciding with that of so 
excellent a critic. The aera, in which my friend has placed his 
poem, the hero he has chosen, and the chivalric character, with 
which he has very properly marked it, are circumstances that might 
naturally prevail with him for modelling it upon the stanza of the 
Fairy Queen, which, though it has not so proud a march as the 
heroic verse, has certainly more of the knightly prance in it, and 
of course more to the writer's purpose than the rhyming couplet. 
Perhaps the public at large have not yet formed a proper estimate 
of the real merit of this heroic poem. Its adoption of a stanza, ob- 
solete and repetitionary on the ear, is a circumstance, that stamps 
upon it the revolting air of an imitation, which in fact it is not, and 
deters many from reading it, who would else find much to admire, 
and instead of discovering any traces of the Fairy Queen, would 
meet enough to remind them of a nobler model in the Iliad of Homer. 
In the mean time it gives me great satisfaction to know that the 
* author of Richard has since paid loyal service to the dramatic 
Muse, and when a mind so prompt in execution, and so fully stored 
with the knowledge both of men and books, shall address its la- 
bours to the stage, I should be loath to doubt but that the time will 
come when classic writing shall expel grimace. 

I hope 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 483 

I hope I shall in no wise hurt the feelings of a lady, who now- 
most worthily fills a very elevated station, if, in speaking of my 
humble productions in the course of my subject, I cannot avoid to 
speak of one of the most elegant actresses that ever graced the 
stage. When I brought out my comedy of The Natural Son, I 
flattered myself that in the sketch of Lady Paragon I had conceived 
a character not quite unworthy of the talents of Miss Farrcn : it is 
saying little in the way of praise, when I acknowledge the partia- 
lity I still retain for that particular part, and indeed for that play 
in general. It was acted and published in the same season with 
the Carmelite, and though I did not either in that instance, or in 
any other to my knowledge, obtrude myself upon the public to the 
exclusion of a competitor, still it was so that the town was pleased 
to interpret my second appeal to their candour, and the newspapers 
of the day vented their malignancy against me in the most oppro- 
brious terms. So exquisite was the style, in which Miss Farreri 
gave her character its best display, and so respectable were her 
auxiliaries in the scene, particularly Mr. John Palmer, that they 
could never deprive the comedy of favourable audiences, though 
their efforts too frequently succeeded in preventing them from be- 
ing full ones. It was a persecution most disgraceful to the freedom 
of the press, and the performers resented it with a sensibility, that 
did them honour; they traced some of the paragraphs to their dirty 
origin, but upon minds entirely debased shame has no effect. 

I now foresaw the coming-on of an event, that must inevitably 
deprive me of one of the greatest comforts, which still adhered to 

3 q 2 m« 



484 MEMOIRS OF 

me in my decline of fortune. It was too evident that the consti- 
tution of Lord Sackville, long harassed by the painful visitation of 
that dreadful malady the stone, was decidedly giving way. There 
was in him so generous a repugnance against troubling his friends 
with any complaints, that it was from external evidence only, never 
from confession, that his sufferings could be guessed at. Attacks, 
that would have confined most people to their beds, never moved 
him from his habitual punctuality. It was curious, and probably 
in some men's eyes would from its extreme precision have appeared 
ridiculously minute and formal, yet in the movements of a domestic 
establishment so large as his, it had its uses and comforts, which 
his guests and family could not fail to partake of. As sure as the 
hand of the clock pointed to the half-hour after nine, neither a 
minute before nor a minute after, so sure did the good lord of the 
castle step into his breakfast room, accoutred at all points accord- 
ing to his own invariable costuma, with a complacent countenance, 
that prefaced his good-morning to each person there assembled; and 
now, whilst I recall these scenes to my remembrance, I feel grati- 
fied by the reflection, that I never passed a night beneath his roof, 
but that his morning's salutation met me at my post. He allowed 
an hour and a half for breakfast, and regularly at eleven took his 
morning's circuit on horseback at a foot's-pace, for his infirmity 
would not admit of any strong gestation ; he had an old groom, who 
had grown grey in his service, that was his constant pilot upon these 
excursions, and his general custom was to make the tour of his 
cottages to reconnoitre the condition they were in, Avhether their 

roofs 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 435 

roofs were in repair, their windows whole, and the gardens well 
cropped and neatly kept ; all this it was their interest to be atten- 
tive to, for he bought the produce of their fruit trees, and I have 
heard him say with great satisfaction that he has paid thirty shil- 
lings in a season for strawberries only to a poor cottager, who paid 
him one shilling annual rent for his tenement and garden ; this was 
the constant rate, at which he let them to his labourers, and he 
made them pay it to his steward at his yearly audit, that they 
might feel themselves in the class of regular tenants, and sit down 
at table to the good cheer provided for them on the audit-day. He 
never rode out without preparing himself with a store of six-pcnces 
in his waistcoat pocket for the children of the poor, who opened 
gates and drew out sliding bars for him in his passage through the 
enclosures : these barriers were well watched, and there was rarely 
any employment for a servant; but these six-pences were not indis- 
criminately bestowed, for as he kept a charity school upon his own 
endowment, he knew to whom he gave them, and generally held a 
short parley with the gate-opener as he paid his toll for passing. Upon 
the very first report of illness or accident relief was instantly sent, 
and they were put upon the sick list, regularly visited, and con- 
stantly supplied with the best medicines administered upon the 
best advice : if the poor man lost his cow or his pig or his poultry, 
the loss was never made up in money, but in stock. It was his 
custom to buy the cast-off liveries of his own servants as constantly 
as the day of cloathing came about, and these he distributed to the 
old and worn-out labourers, who turned out daily on the lawn and 

pad doc 



486 MEMOIRS OF 

paddoc in the Sackville livery to pick up boughs and sweep up 
leaves, and in short do just as much work as served to keep them 
wholesome and alive. 

To his religious duties this good man was not only regularly but 
respectfully attentive : on the Sunday morning he appeared in gala, 
as if he was dressed for a drawing-room ; he marched out his whole 
family in grand cavalcade to his parish church, leaving only a 
centinel to watch the fires at home, and mount guard upon the 
spits. His deportment in the house of prayer was exemplary, and 
more in character of times past than of time present : he had a 
way of standing up in sermon-time for the purpose of reviewing the 
congregation, and awing the idlers into decorum, that never failed 
to remind me of Sir Roger de Coverley at church ; sometimes, when 
he has been struck with passages in the discourse, which he wished 
to point out to the audience as rules for moral practice worthy to 
be noticed, he would mark his approbation of them with such 
cheering nods and signals of assent to the preacher, as were often 
more than my muscles could withstand ; but when to the total 
overthrow of all gravity, in his zeal to encourage the efforts of a 
very young declaimer in the pulpit, I heard him cry out to the 
Reverend Mr. Henry Eatoff in the middle of his sermon — " Well 
"done, Harry!" It was irresistible; suppression was out of my 
power : what made it more intolerably comic was, the unmoved 
sincerity of his manner, and his surprise to find that any thing had 
passed, that could provoke a laugh so out of time and place. He 
had nursed up with no small care and cost in each of his parish 

churches 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 487 

churches a corps of rustic psalm-singers, to whose performances he 
paid the greatest attention, rising up, and with his eyes directed 
to the singing gallery, marking time, which was not always rigidly 
adhered to, and once, when his ear, which was very correct, had 
been tortured by a tone most glaringly discordant, he set his mark 
upon the culprit by calling out to him by name, and loudly saying 
"Out of tune, Tom Baker — !" Now this faulty musician Tom 
Baker happened to be his lordship's butcher, but then in order to 
set names and trades upon a par, Tom Butcher was his lordship's 
baker; which I observed to him was much such a reconcilement of 
cross partners as my illustrious friend George Faulkner hit upon, 
when in his Dublin Journal he printed — " Erratum in our last — For 
" His Grace the Duchess of Dorset read Her Grace the Duke of 
" Dorset—" 

I relate these little anecdotes of a man, whose character had 
nothing little in it, that I may show him to my readers in his pri- 
vate scenes, and be as far as 1 am able the intimate and true tran- 
scriber of his heart. While the marriage-settlement of his eldest 
daughter was in preparation, he said to the noble person then in 
treaty for her — " I am perfectly assured, my lord, that you have 
" correctly given in a statement of your affairs, as you in honour 
" and in conscience religiously believe them to be ; but I am much 
" afraid they have been estimated to you for better than they really 
" are, and you must allow me therefore to apprise you, that I shall 
" propose an alteration in my daughter's fortune, more proportioned 
" to what I now conceive to be the real valuation of your lordship's 

" property — " 



488 MEMOIRS OF 

" property — " To this, when the generous and disinterested suitor 
expressed his ready acquiescence my friend replied (I had the 
anecdote from his own mouth) " I perceive your lordship under- 
" stands me, as proposing a reduction from my daughter's portion ; 
" not so, my lord ; my purpose is to double it, that I may have the 
" gratification of supplying those deficiencies in the statement, 
" which I took the liberty of noticing, and which, as you were not 
" aware of them, might else have disappointed and perhaps misled 
" you — " When he imparted this circumstance to me in the words, 
as nearly as I can remember, but correctly in the spirit of those 
words, he said to me—" I hope you don't suppose I would have 
" done this for my eldest daughter, if I had not assured myself of 
" my ability to do the same for the other two — ." 

It was in the year 1785, whilst he was at Stoneland, that those 
symptoms first appeared, which gradually disclosed such evidences 
of debility, as could not be concealed, and shewed to demonstra- 
tion, that the hand of death was even then upon him. He had pre- 
pared himself with an opinion deliberately formed upon the matter 
of the Irish Propositions, and when that great question was ap- 
pointed to come on for discussion in the House of Lords, he thought 
himself bound in honour and duty to attend in his place. He then 
for the first time confessed himself to be unfit for the attempt, and 
plainly declared he believed it would be his death. He paused for 
a few moments, as if in hesitation how to decide, and the air of his 
countenance was impressed with melancholy : we were standing 
under the great spreading tree, that shelters the back-entrance to 

the 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 489 

the house; the day was hot; he had dismounted heavily from his 
horse; we were alone, and it was plain that exercise, though gentle, 
had increased his languor; he was oppressed both in body and 
spirit; he did not attempt to disguise it, for he could no longer 
counterfeit: he sate do.wn upon the bench at the tree-foot, and 
composing his countenance, as if he wished to have forced a smile 
upon it, had his suffering given him leave — " I know, said he, as 
** well as you can tell me, what you think of me just now, and that 
" you are convinced if I go to town upon this Irish business, I go 
" to nry death ; but I also know you arc at heart not against my 
" undertaking it, for I have one convincing proof for ever present 
" to me, how much more you consult my honour than my safety : 
" And after all what do I sacrifice, if with the sentence of inevitable 
" death in my hand, I only lop off a few restless hours, and in the 
" execution of my duty meet the stroke ? In one word I tell you I 
" shall go : we will not have another syllable upon the subject ; 
" don't advise it, lest you should repent of it, when it has killed 
" me ; and do not oppose it, because it would not be your true 
" opinion, and if it were, I would not follow it — " 

It was in that same day after dinner, as I well remember, the 
evening being most serene and lovely, we seated ourselves in the 
chairs, that were placed out upon the garden grass-plat, which looks 
towards Crowbery and the forest. Our conversation led us to the 
affair of Minden ; my friend most evidently courted the discussion : 
I told him I had diligently attended the whole process of the trial, 
and that I had detailed it to Mr. Dodington ; I had consequently 

3 k a pretty 



490 MEMOIRS OF 

a pretty correct remembrance of the leading circumstances as they 
came out upon the evidence. But I observed to him that it was not 
upon the questions and proceeding agitated at that court, that I 
could perfect my opinion of the case ; there must be probably a 
chain of leading causes, which, though they could not make a part 
of his defence in public court, might, if developed, throw such 
lights on the respective conduct of the parties, as would have led to 
conclusions different from those, which stood upon the record. 

To this he answered that my remark was just: there were certain 
circumstances antecedent to the action, that should be taken into 
consideration, and there were certain forbearances, posterior to the 
trial, that should be accounted for. The time was come, when he 
could have no temptation to disguise and violate the truth, and a 
much more awful trial was now close at hand, where he must suffer for 
it if he did. He would talk plainly, temperately and briefly to me, 
as his manner was, provided I would promise him to deal sincerely, 
and not spare to press him on such points, as stuck with me for 
want of explanation. This being premised, he entered upon a de- 
tail, which unless I could give, as taken down from his lips, without 
the variation of a word, so sacred do I hold the reputation of the 
dead entrusted to me, and the feelings of the living, whom any 
error of mine might wound, that I shall forbear to speak of it ex- 
cept in general terms. He appeared to me throughout his whole 
discourse like a man, who had perfectly dismissed his passions ; his 
colour never changed, his features never indicated embarrassment, 
his voice was never elevated, and being relieved at times by my 

questions 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 491 

questions and remarks, he appeared to speak without pain, and in 
the event his mind seemed lightened by the discharge. When I 
compare what he said to me in his last moments, (not two hours 
before he expired) with what he stated at this conference, if I did 
not from my heart, and upon the most entire conviction of my rea- 
son and understanding, solemnly acquit that injured man, (now 
gone to his account) of the opprobrious and false imputations, de- 
posed against him at his trial, I must be either brutally ignorant, 
or wilfully obstinate against the truth. 

At the battle of Fontenoy, at the head of his brave regiment, in 
the very front of danger and the heat of action, he received a bullet 
in his breast, and being taken off the field by his grenadiers, was 
carried into a tent belonging to the equipage of the French King, 
and there laid upon a table, whilst the surgeon dressed his Avound ; 
so far had that glorious column penetrated in their advance towards 
victory, unfortunately snatched from them. Let us contemplate 
the same man, commanding the British cavalry in the battle of 
Minden, no longer in the front of danger and the heat of action, 
no longer in the pursuit of victory, for that was gained, and can we 
think with his unjust defamer, that such a man would tremble at a 
flying foe ? It is a supposition against nature, a charge that can- 
not stand, an imputation that confutes itself. 

Perhaps I am repeating things that I have said in my account 
of him, published after his death, but I have no means of referring 
to that pamphlet, and have been for some time writing at Rams- 

3 r 2 gate, 



492 MEMOIRS OF 

gate, where I have not a single book to turn to, and very few pa- 
pers and minutes of transactions to refresh my memory. 

Lord Sackville attended parliament, as he said he would, and 
returned, as he predicted, a dying man. He allowed me to call in 
Sir Francis Millman, then practising at Tunbridge Wells : all me- 
dical assistance was in vain ; the saponaceous medicines, that had 
given him intervals of ease, and probably many years of existence, 
had now lost their efficacy, or by their efficacy worn their conduc- 
tors out. He wished to take his last leave of the Earl of Mansfield, 
then at Tunbridge Wells ; I signified this to the earl, and accompa- 
nied him in his chaise to Stoneland ; I was present at their inter- 
view. Lord Sackville, just dismounted from his horse, came into 
the room, where we had waited a very few minutes, and staggered 
as he advanced to reach his hand to his respectable visitor ; he 
drew his breath with palpitating quickness, and if I remember 
rightly never rode again : there was a death-like character in his 
countenance, that visibly affected and disturbed Lord Mansfield in 
a manner, that I did not quite expect, for it had more of horror in 
it, than a firm man ought to have shewn, and less perhaps of other 
feelings than a friend, invited to a meeting of that nature, must 
have discovered, had he not been fright ened^from his propriety. 

As soon as Lord Sackville had recovered his breath, his visitor 
remaining silent, he began by apologising for the trouble he had 
given him, and for the unpleasant spectacle he was conscious of 
exhibiting to him in the condition he was now reduced to; " but 

" my 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 493 

" my good lord, he said, though I ought not to have imposed 
" upon you the painful ceremony of paying a last visit to a dying 
" man, yet so great was my anxiety to return you my unfeigned 
" thanks for all your goodness to me, all the kind protection you 
»< have shewn me through the course of my unprosperous life, that 
" I could not know you was so near me, and not wish to assure you 
" of the invariable respect I have entertained for your character, 
" and now in the most serious manner to solicit your forgiveness, if 
" ever in the fluctuations of politics or the heats of party, I have 
" appeared in your eyes at any moment of my life unjust to your 
" great merits, or forgetful of your many favours." 

When I record this speech, I give it to the reader as correct; I 
do not trust to memory at this distance ; I transcribe it : I scorn 
the paltry trick of writing speeches for any man, whose name is in 
these Memoirs, or for myself, in whose name these Memoirs shall 
go forth respectable at least for their veracity ; for I certainly can- 
not wish to present myself to the world in two such opposite and 
incoherent characters as the writer of my own history, and the hero 
of a fiction. 

Lord Mansfield made a reply perfectly becoming and highly- 
satisfactory : he was far on in years, and not in sanguine health or a 
strong state of nerves ; there was no immediate reason to continue 
the discourse ; Lord Sackville did not press for it ; his visitor de- 
parted, and I staid with him. He made no other observation upon 
what had passed than that it was extremely obliging in Lord Mans- 
field, and then turned to other subjects. 

In 



494 MEMOIRS OF 

In him the vital principle was strong, and nature, which resisted 
dissolution, maintained at every out-post, that defended life, a 
lingering agonizing struggle. Through every stage of varied misery 
— extremes by change more fierce — his fortitude remained unshaken, his 
senses perfect, and his mind never died, till the last pulse was spent, 
and his heart stopped for ever. 

In this period intelligence arrived of the Propositions being 
withdrawn in the Irish House of Commons : he had letters on this 
subject from several correspondents, and one from Lord Sydney, 
none of which we thought fit then to give him. I told him in as few 
words and as clearly as I could how the business passed, but re- 
quested he would simply hear it, and not argue upon it — " I am 
" not sorry, he said, that it has so happened. You can witness that 
" my predictions are verified : something might now be set on foot 
" for the benefit of both countries. I wish I could live long enough 
" to give my opinion in my place ; I have formed my thoughts upon 
" it ; but it is too late for me to do any good ; I hope it will fall 
" into abler hands, and you forbid me to argue. I see you are 
" angry with me for talking, and indeed it gives me pain. I have 
" nothing to do in this life, but to obey and be silent — " From 
that moment he never spoke a word upon the subject. 

As I knew he had been some time meditating on his prepara- 
tions to receive the sacrament, and death seemed near at hand, 
I reminded him of it ; he declared himself ready and at peace with 
all mankind ; in one instance only he confessed it cost him a hard 
struggle. What that iustance was he needed not to explain to me, 

nor 



Tojtnu p,ij, 4fft, 







1'ubUslicd by Lat'kinylrn. 'lU<?n &(■'' Nov. "m?. 180 6. 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 495 

nor am I careful to explain to any. I trust according to the infir- 
mity of man's nature he is rather to be honoured for having finally 
extinguished his resentment, than condemned for having fostered it 
too long. A Christian Saint would have done it sooner : how many 
men would not have done it ever ! 

The Reverend Mr. Sackville Bayle, his worthy parish priest and 
ever faithful friend, administered the solemn office of the sacrament 
to him, reading at his request the prayers for a communicant at the 
point of death. He had ordered all his bed-curtains to be opened 
and the sashes thrown up, that he might have air and space to 
assist him in his efforts : what they were, with what devotion he 
joined in those solemn prayers, that warn the parting spirit to dis- 
miss all hopes, that centre in this world, that reverend friend can 
witness ; I also was a witness and a partaker; none else was present 
at that holy ceremony. 

A short time before he expired I came by his desire to his bed- 
side, when taking my hand, and pressing it between his, he ad- 
dressed me for the last time in the following words — " You see me 
now in those moments, when no disguise will serve, and when the 
spirit of a man must be proved. I have a mind perfectly resigned, 
and at peace within itself. I have done with this world, and what 
" I have done in it, I have done for the best ; I hope and trust I 
" am prepared for the next. Tell not me of all that passes in health 
" and pride of heart ; these are the moments, in which a man must 
" be searched, and remember that I die, as you see me, with a tran- 
" quil conscience and content — " I have reason to know I am cor- 
rect 



496 MEMOIRS OF 

rect in these expressions, because I transcribe them word for word 
from a copy of my letter to the Honourable George Darner, now 
Earl of Dorchester, written a few days after his uncle Lord Sack- 
ville's death, and dated September 13th 1785. 

To that excellent and truly noble person I recommend and devote 
this short but faithful sketch of his relations character, conscious how 
highly he deserved, and how entirely he possessed, the love and the 
esteem of the deceased. 

It may to some appear strange that I do not rather address my- 
self to the present lord, the eldest son of his father and the inheritor 
of his title. He, who knows he has no plea for slighting the friend, 
who has loved him, knows that he has put it out of my power, and 
that I must be of all men most insensible, if I did not poignantly 
feel and feelingly lament his unmerited neglect of me. If the fore- 
going pages ever meet his eyes, I hope the record of his father's 
virtues will inspire him to imitate his father's example. 

I put in my plea for pardon in the very first page of my book with 
respect to errors in the dates of my disorderly productions. I should 
have mentioned my comedy of The Impostor, and the publication of 
my novel of Arundel in two volumes, which I hastily put together 
whilst I was passing a few idle weeks at Brighthelmstone, where I had 
no books but such as a circulating novel-shop afforded. I dispatched 
that work so rapidly, sending it to the press by parcels, of which my 

first 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 497 

first copy was the only one, that I really do not remember what 
moved me to the undertaking, nor how it came to pass that the 
cacoethes scribendi nugas first got hold of me. Be this as it may, I 
am not about to affect a modesty, which I do not feel, or to 
seek a shelter from the sin of writing ill, by acknowledging the 
folly of writing rapidly, for I believe that Arundel has entertained 
as many readers, and gained as good a character in the world as 
most heroes of his description, not excepting the immaculate Sir 
Charles Grandison, in whose company I have never found myself 
without being puzzled to decide, whether I am most edified by his 
morality, or disgusted by his pedantry. Arundel perhaps, of all 
the children, which my brain has given birth to, had the least care 
and pains bestowed upon his education, yet he is a gentleman, and 
has been received as such in the first circles, for though he takes 
the wrong side of the question in his argument with Mortlake upon 
duelling, yet there is hardly one to be found, who thinks with 
Mortlake, but would be shamed out of society, if he did not act 
with Arundel. In the character of the Countess of G. I confess I 
have set virtue upon ice ; she slips, but does not fall ; and if I 
have endowed the young ladies with a degree of sensibility, that 
might have exposed them to danger, I flatter myself I have taken 
the proper means of rescuing them from it by marrying them respec- 
tively to the men of their hearts. 

The success however, which by this novel I obtained without 
labour, determined me to write a second, on which I was resolved 
to bestow my utmost care and diligence. In this temper of mind I 

3 s began 



493 MEMOIRS OF 

began to form to myself in idea what I conceived should be the 
model of a perfect novel ; having after much deliberation settled 
and adjusted this to the best of my judgment, I decided for the 
novel in detail; rejecting the epistolary process, which I had pur- 
sued in Arundel, and also that, in which the hero speaks through- 
out, and is his own biographer ; though in putting both these pro- 
cesses aside I felt much more hesitation in the last-mentioned case 
than in the first. 

Having taken Fielding's admirable novel of Tom Jones as my 
pattern in point of detail, I resolved to copy it also in its distribu- 
tion into chapters and books, and to prefix prefatory numbers to 
the latter, to the composition of which I addressed my best atten- 
tion. In some of these I have taken occasion to submit those rules 
for the construction of a novel, which I flattered myself might be 
of use to future writers in that line, less experienced than myself. 
How far I have succeeded is not for me to say, but if I have failed, 
I am without excuse, for I had this work in hand two full years, 
and gave more polish and correction to the style, than ever I be- 
stowed upon any of my published works before. The following 
few rules, which I laid down for my own guidance, and strictly 
observed, I still persuade myself are such as ought to be observed 
by others. 

I would have the story carried on in a regular uninterrupted 
progression of events, without those dull recitals, that call the at- 
tention off from what is going on, and compel it to look back, per- 
haps in the very crisis of curiosity, to circumstances antecedent to, 

and 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 499 

and not always materially connected with, the history in hand. I 
am decidedly adverse to episodes and stories within stories, like 
that of the Man of the Hill in Tom Jones, and in general all expe- 
dients of procrastination, which come under the description of mere 
tricks to torture curiosity, are in my opinion to be very sparingly 
resorted to, if not totally avoided. Casualties and broken-bones, 
and faintings and high fevers with ramblings of delirium and rhap- 
sodies of nonsense are perfectly contemptible. I think descriptive 
writing, properly so distinguished, is very apt to describe nothing, 
and that landscapes upon paper leave no picture in the mind, 
and only load the page with daubings, that in the author's fancy 
may be sketches after nature, but to the reader's eye offer nothing 
but confusion. A novel, professing itself to be the delineation of 
men and women as they are in nature, should in general confine 
itself to the relation of things probable, and though in skilful hands 
it may be made to touch upon things barely possible, the seklonier 
it risques those experiments, the better opinion I should form of the 
contriver's conduct: I do not think quotations ornament it, and 
poetry must be extremely good before I can allow it is of any use 
to it. In short there 'should be authorities in nature for every thing 
that is introduced, and the only case I can recollect in which the 
creator of the fictitious man may and ought to differ from the bio- 
grapher of the real man, is* that the former is bound to deal out his 
rewards to the virtuous and punishments to the vicious, whilst the 

3 s 2 latter 



500 MEMOIRS OF 

latter has no choice but to adhere to the truth of facts, and leave 
his hero neither worse nor better than he found him. 

Monsters of cruelty and crime, monks and Zelucos, horrors and 
thunderings and ghosts are creatures of another region, tools appro- 
priated to another trade, and are only to be handled by dealers in 
old castles and manufacturers of romances. 

As the tragic drama may be not improperly described as an 
epic poem of compressed action, so I think we may call the novel a 
dilated comedy; though Henry Fielding, who was pre-eminently 
happy in the one, was not equally so in the other : non omnia possu- 
mus omnes. If the readers of Henry have agreed with me in the 
principles laid down in those prefatory chapters, and here again 
briefly touched upon, I flatter myself they found a novel conducted 
throughout upon those very principles, and which in no one in- 
stance does a violence to nature, or resorts to forced and impro- 
bable expedients to excite surprise ; I flatter myself they found a 
story regularly progressive without any of those retrogradations or 
counter-marches, which break the line, and discompose the arrange- 
ment of the fable : I hope they found me duly careful to keep the 
principal characters in sight, and above all if I devoted myself con 
amore to the delineation of Zachary Cawdle, and in a more parti- 
cular manner to the best services I could perform for the good Eze- 
hiel Daw, I warmly hope they did not think my partiality quite 
misapplied, or my labour of love entirely thrown away. 

If in my zeal to exhibit virtue triumphant over the most tempt- 
ing 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. .501 

ing allurements, I have painted those allurements in two vivid co- 
lours, I am sorry, and ask pardon of all those, who thought the 
moral did not heal the mischief. 

If my critics have not been too candid I am encouraged to be- 
lieve, that in these volumes of Henry, and in those of The Observer, 
I have succeeded in what I laboured to effect with all my care — a 
simple, clear, harmonious style ; which, taken as a model, may be 
followed without leading the novitiate either into turgidity or ob- 
scurity, holding a middle tone of period, neither swelling into 
high-flown metaphor, nor sinking into inelegant and unclassical 
rusticity. Whether or not I have succeeded, I certainly have at- 
tempted, to reform and purify my native language from certain false 
pedantic prevalencies, which were much in fashion, when I first 
became a writer; I dare not say with those, whose flattery might 
mislead me, that I have accomplished what I aimed at, but if I 
have done something towards it, I may say with Pliny — Posteris an 
aliqua cur a nostri, nescio Nos certe meremur ut sit aliqua ; non di- 
cam ingenio ; id enim superbum ; sed studio, scd labore, sed reverentia 
poster or um. 

The mental gratification, which the exercise of the fancy in the 
act of composition gives me, has, (with the exception only of the 
task I am at present engaged in) led me to that inordinate consump- 
tion of paper, of which much has been profitless, much unseen, 
and very much of that which has been seen, would have been more 
worthy of the world, had I bestowed more blotting upon it before I 
committed it to the press : yet I am now about to mention a poem 

not 



502 MEMOIRS OF 

not the most imperfect of my various productions, of which the first 
manuscript copy was the only one* and that perhaps the fairest I had 
ever put out of my hands. Heroic verse has been always more fa- 
miliar to me, and more easy in point of composition, than prose : 
my thoughts flow more freely in metre, and I can oftentimes fill a 
page with less labour and less time in verse of that description, than 
it costs me to adjust and harmonise a single period in prose to my 
entire satisfaction. 

The work I now allude to is my poem of Calvary, and the grati- 
fication, of which I have been speaking, mixed as I trust with wor- 
thier and more serious motives, led me to that undertaking. It had 
never been my hard lot to write, as many of my superiors have been 
forced to do, task-work for a bookseller, it was therefore my custom, 
as it is with voluptuaries of another description, to fly from one 
pursuit to another for the greater zest which change and contrast 
gave to my intellectual pleasures. I had as yet done nothing in the 
epic way, except my juvenile attempt, of which I have given an 
extract, and I applied myself to the composition of Calvary with 
uncommon ardour; I began it in the winter, and, rising every 
morning some hours before day-light, soon dispatched the whole 
poem of eight books at the average of full fifty lines in a day, of 
which I kept a regular account, marking each day's work upon 
my manuscript. I mention this, because it is a fact ; but I am not 
so mistaken as to suppose that any author can be entitled to take 
credit to himself for the little care he has bestowed upon his com- 
positions. 

It 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 503 

It was not till I had taken up Milton's immortal poem of Para- 
dise Lost, and read it studiously and completely through, that I 
brought the plan of Calvary to a consistency, and resolved to ven- 
ture on the attempt. I saw such aids in point of character, inci- 
dent and diction, such facilities held out by the sacred historians, 
as encouraged me to hope I might aspire to introduce my humble 
Muse upon that hallowed ground without profaning it. 

As for the difficulties, which by the nature of his subject Milton 
had to encounter, I perceived them to be such as nothing but the 
genius of Milton could surmount : that he has failed in some in- 
stances cannot be denied, but it is matter of wpndcr and admira- 
tion, that he has miscarried in so feAv. The noble structure he has 
contrived to raise with the co-operation of two human beings only, 
and those the first created of the human race, strikes us with asto- 
nishment ; but at the same time it forces him upon such frequent 
flights beyond the bounds of nature, and obliges him in so great 
a degree to depend upon the agency of supernatural beings, of 
whose persons we have no prototype, and of whose operations, of- 
fices and intellectual powers we are incompetent to form any ade- 
quate conception, that it is not to be wondered at, if there are 
parts and passages in that divine poem, that we either pass over by 
choice, or cannot read without regret. 

Upon a single text in scripture he has described a Battle in 
Heaven, in most respects tremendously sublime, in others painfully 
reminding us how impossible it is for man's limited imagination to 
find weapons for immortal spirits, or conceive an army of rebellious 

angels 



504 MEMOIRS OF 

angels employing instruments of human invention upon the vain 
impossible idea, that their material artillery could shake the imma- 
terial throne of the One Supreme Being, the Almighty Creator and 
Disposer of them and the universe. Accordingly when we are pre- 
sented with the description of Christ, the meek Redeemer of man- 
kind, going forth in a chariot to the battle, brilliant although the 
picture is, it dazzles and we start from it revolted by the blaze. 
But when the poet, deeming himself competent to find words for 
the Almighty, contrives a conference between the First and Second 

Persons in the Trinity, Ave are compelled to say with Pope 

That God the Father turns a school-divine. 
I must entreat my readers not so to misconceive my meaning as 
to suppose me vain enough to think, that by noticing these spots in 
Milton's glorious sun, I am advancing my dim lamp to any the most 
distant competition with it. I have no other motive for mentioning 
them but to convince the patrons of these Memoirs, that I did not 
attempt the composition of a sacred epic, where he must for ever 
stand so decidedly pre-eminent, till by comparing the facilities of 
my subject with the amazing difficulties of his, I had found a bow 
proportioned to my strength, and did not presume to bend it till I 
was certified of its flexibility. 

It could not possibly be overlooked by me, that in taking the 
Death of Christ for my subject, I had the advantage of dating my 
poem at a point of time, the most awful in the whole history of the 
world, the most pregnant with sublime events, and the most fully 
fraught with grand and interesting characters; that I had those 

characters, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 505 

characters, and those events, so pointedly delineated and so im- 
pressively described by the inspired historians, as to leave little 
else for me to do, but to restrain invention, and religiously to fol- 
low in the path, that was chalked out to me. Accordingly I trust 
there will be found very little of the audacity of fancy in the compo- 
sition of Calvary, and few sentiments or expressions ascribed to the 
Saviour, which have not the sanction and authority of the sacred 
records. When he descends into Hades I have endeavoured to 
avail myself of what has been revealed to us for those conjectural 
descriptions, and I hope I have not far outstepped discretion, or 
heedlessly indulged a wild imagination ; for though I venture 
upon untouched ground, presuming to unfold a scene, which mys- 
tery has involved in darkness, yet I have the visions of the Saint at 
Patmos to hold up a light to me, and assist me in my efforts to 
pervade futurity. 

My first publication of Calvary in quarto had so languid a sale, 
that it left me with the inconvenient loss of at least one hundred 
pounds, and the discouraging conviction, that the public did not 
concern itself about the poem, or the poem-maker ; I felt at the 
same time a proud indignant consciousness, that it claimed a bet- 
ter treatment, and whilst I called to mind the true and brotherly 
devotion I had ever borne to the fame of my contemporaries, I was 
stung by their neglect ; and having laid my poem on the death of 
my Redeemer at the feet of my Sovereign, which, for aught that 
ever reached my knowledge, he might, or might not, have received 
by the hand of his librarian, I had nothing to console me but the 

3 x reflection 



506 MEMOIRS OF 

reflection that there would perhaps be a tribunal, that would deal 
out justice to me, when I could not be a gainer by it, and speak 
favourably of my performance, when I could not hear their praises. 

I shall now take leave of Calvary after acknowledging my obli- 
gations to my publishers for their speculation of a new edition, and 
also to the purchasers of that edition for their reconcilement to a 
book, which, till it was reduced to a more portable size, they were 
little disposed to take away with them. 

I consider Tristram Shandy as the most eccentric work of my 
time, and Junius the most acrimonious ; we have heard much of 
his style ; I have just been reading him over with attention, and I 
confess I can see but little to admire. The thing to wonder at is, 
that a secret, to which several must have been privy, has been so 
strictly kept ; if Sir William Draper, who baffled him in some of 
his assertions, had kept his name out of sight, I am inclined to 
think he might have held up the cause of candour with success. 
The publisher of Junius I am told was deeply guaranteed ; of course, 
although he might not know his author, he must have known where- 
abouts to look for him. I never heard that my friend Lord George 
Germain was amongst the suspected authors, till by way of jest he 
told me so not many days before his death : I did not want him to 
disavow it, for there could be no occasion to disprove an absolute 
impossibility. The man, who wrote it, had a savage heart, for 
some of his attacks are execrable ; he was a hypocrite, for he dis- 
avows private motives, and makes pretensions to a patriotic spirit. 
I can perfectly call to mind the general effect of his letters, and 

am 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 507 

am of opinion that his malice overshot its mark. Let the anony- 
mous defamei be as successful as he may, it is but an unenviable 
triumph, a mean and cowardly gratification, which his dread of a 

discovery forbids him to avow. 

As for Tristram Shandy, whose many plagiarisms are now de- 
tected, his want of delicacy is unpardonable, and his tricks have 
too much of frivolity and buffoonery in them to pass upon the rea- 
der ; but his real merit lies not only in his general conception of cha- 
racters, but in the address, with which he marks them out by those 
minute, yet striking, touches of his pencil, that make his descrip- 
tions pictures, and his pictures life : in the pathetic he excels, as 
his story of Lefevre witnesses, but he seems to have mistaken his 
powers, and capriciously to have misapplied his genius. 

I conceive there is not to be found in all the writings of my day, 
perhaps I may say not in the English language, so brilliant a clus- 
ter of fine and beautiful passages in the declamatory style, as we 
are presented with in Edmund Burke's inimitable tract upon the 
French Revolution. It is most highly coloured and most richly orna- 
mented, but there is elegance in its splendour, and dignity in its 
magnificence. The orator demands attention in a loud and lofty 
tone, but his voice never loses its melody, nor his periods their 
sweetness. When he has roused us with the thunder of his eloquence, 
he can at once, Timotheus-like, chuse a melancholy theme, and 
melt us into pity : there is grace in his anger; for he can inveigh 
without vulgarity; he can modulate the strongest bursts of passion, 
for even in his madness there is music. 

3x2 I WM 



508 MEMOIRS OF 

I was so charmed with the style and matter of this pamphlet, 

that I could not withstand the pleasure of intruding upon him with 

a letter of thanks, of which I took no copy, but fortunately have 

preserved his answer to it, which is as follows — 

" Beconsfield November 13th 1790. 
" Dear Sir, 

" I was yesterday honoured with your most obliging 

" letter. You may be assured, that nothing could be more flatter- 

" ing to me than the approbation of a gentleman so distinguished 

" in literature as you are, and in so great a variety of its branches. 

" It is an earnest to me of that degree of toleration in the public 

" judgment, which may give my reasonings some chance of being 

" useful. I know however that I am indebted to your politeness 

" and your good nature as much as to your opinion, for the indul- 

" gent manner, in which you have been pleased to receive my en- 

" deavour. Whether I have described our countrymen properly, 

" time is to shew : I hope I have, but at any rate it is perhaps the 

" best way to persuade them to be right by supposing that they are 

" so. Great bodies, like great men, must be instructed in the way, 

" in which they will be best pleased to receive instruction ; flattery 

•*' itself may be converted into a mode of counsel : laudando admo- 

" nere has not always been the most unsuccessful method of advice. 

" In this case moral policy requires it, for when you must expose 

" the practices of some kinds of men, you do nothing if you do not 

" distinguish them from others. 

" Accept once more my best acknowledgments for the very 

" handsome 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 509 

u handsome manner, in which you have been pleased to consider 
" my pamphlet, and dome the justice to believe me with the most 
" perfect respect, 

" Dear Sir, 

" Your most faithful 

" And obliged humble servant, 

" Edm. Burke." 

Am I, or am 1 not, to regret that this fine writer devoted him- 
self so professedly to politics ? I conceive there must be two opi- 
nions upon this question amongst his contemporaries, and onlv one, 
that will be entertained by posterity. Those, who heard his par- 
liamentary speeches with delight, will not easily be induced to wish 
that he had spoken less ; whilst those, who can only read him, Mill 
naturally regret that he had not written more. The orator, like 
the actor, lives only in the memory of his hearers, and his fame 
must rest upon tradition : Mr. Burke in parliament enjoyed the tri- 
umph of a day, but Mr. Burke on paper would have been the foun- 
der of his own immortality. 

Amongst the variety of branches, to which Mr. Burke is pleased 
so flatteringly to allude, and which certainly are more in number 
than the literary annals of any author in my recollection can ex- 
hibit, I reflect with satisfaction that I have devoted much time and 
thought to serious subjects, and been far from idle or hike-warm in 
the service of religion. I have written at different times as many 
sermons as would make a large volume, some of which have been 
delivered from the pulpits : I have rendered into English metre fifty 

of 



510 MEMOIRS OF 

of the pslams of David, which are printed by Mr. Strange of Tun- 
bridge Wells, and upon which I natter myself I have not in vain 
bestowed my best attention. I have for some years been in the 
habit of composing an appropriate prayer of thanksgiving for the 
last day in the year, and of supplication for the first day in the suc- 
ceeding year. I published by Messrs. Lackington and Co. a reli- 
gious and argumentative tract, entitled A few plain Reasons for be- 
lieving in the Evidences of the Christian Revelation ; and this tract, 
which I conceive to be orthodox in all its points, and unanswerably 
demonstrative as a confutation of all the false reasoners according 
to the new philosophy, I presented with all due deference to the 
Bishop of London, who was pleased to honour me with a very 
gracious acknowledgment by letter, and likewise to the late Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, who was not pleased to acknowledge it in 
any way whatever. But I had no particular right to expect it : all 
regulars are not equally candid to the volunteer, as I have good 
reason to know. 

I have selected several passages from the Old Testament, and 
turned them into verse : they are either totally lost, or buried out 
of sight in the chaos of my manuscripts ; I find one only amongst 
the few loose papers I have with me, and I take the liberty of in- 
serting it — 

" Judges, Chapter the 5th. 

" Hear, all earth's crowned monarchs, hear ! 
" Princes and judges, to my song give ear: 

"To 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 511 

" To Israel's God my voice I'll raise, 
" And joyful chaunt Jehovah's praise. 
" Lord, when in Edom's glorious day 
" Thou wentest forth in bright array, 
" Earth to her inmost center shook, 
" The mountains melted at thy look, 
" The clouds dropp'd down their watry store, 
" Rent with the thunder's loud tremendous roar. 

" Must I remember Shamgar's gloomy days, 
" And that sad time when Jael rul'd our coast? 
" No print of foot then mark'd our public ways, 
" Waste horror reign'd, the human face was lost. 
" Then I, I Deborah, assum'd command, 
" The nursing mother of the drooping land ; 
" Then was our nation alien from the Lord, 
" Then o'er our heads high wav'd the hostile sword, 
" Nor shield, nor spear was found to arm for fight, 
" And naked thousands turn'd their backs in flight. 



" But now awake, my soul, and thou arise, 
" Barak ; to thee the victory is giv'n ; 
" Let our joint song ascend the skies, 
" And celebrate the majesty of heav'n. 
" On me, the priestess of the living Lord, 



« The 



512 MEMOIRS OF 

" The care of Israel was bestow'd : 

" Ephraim and Benjamin obey'd my word, 

" The Scribes of Zebulun allegiance shewed, 

" And Issachar, a princely train, 

" With glittering ensigns dazzled all the plain. 

" But Oh ! what sad divisions keep 
" Reuben inglorious 'midst his bleating sheep ? 
" Gilead in Jordan his asylum seeks, 
" Dan in his ships, and Asher in his creeks, 
" Whilst Naphthali's more warlike sons expose 
*' Their gallant lives, and dare their country's foes. 
" Then was the battle fought by Canaan's kings 
" In Taanach beside Megiddo's springs : 
" The stars themselves 'gainst Sisera declare ; 

" Israel is heaven's peculiar care. 

" Old Kishon stain'd with hostile blood, 

" RolFd to the main a purple flood ; 

*' The neighing steed, the thund'ring car 

" Proclaim'd the terrors of the war ; 

" But high in honour 'bove the rest 

" Be Jael our avenger blest, 
" Blest above women ! to her tent she drew 
" With seeming friendship label's mighty chief; 
" Fainting with beat and toil he sought relief, 
" He slept, and in his sleep her weary guest she slew, 



a 



The 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 513 

" The workman's hammer in this hand she took, 
" In that the fatal nail, then boldly struck ; 
" Through both his temples drove the deadly wound, 
" Transfix'd his brain and pinn'd him to the ground. 
" Why stays my son, his absent mother cries; 
" When shall I welcome his returning car, 
" Loaded with spoils of conqu'ring war ? 
" Ah wretched mother, hide thine eyes ; 
" At Jael's feet a headless trunk he lies — 
" So Sisera fell, and God made Avars to cease, 
" So rested Israel, and the land had peace." 
Of my dramatic pieces I must say in the gross, that if I did not 
always succeed in entertaining the audience, I continued to amuse 
myself. I brought out a comic opera in three acts, founded on the 
story of Wat Tyler, which being objected to by the Lord Chamber- 
lain, I was obliged to new model, and produce under the title of 
The Armourer. When I had taken all the comedy out of it, I waa 
not surprised to find that the public were not very greatly edified by 
what was left. 

I also brought out a comedy called The Country Attorney at the 
summer theatre, when it was under the direction of the elder Mr. 
Column. At the same theatre, under the auspices of the present 
candid and ingenious supcrintendant, I produced my comedy of 
The Box-Lobby Challenge, and my drama of Don Pedro. 

When the new and splendid theatre of Drury-Lanc was opened, 
my comedy of The Jew was represented, and if I am not mistaken, 

3 u (I speak 



514 MEMOIRS OF 

(I speak upon conjecture) it was the first new piece exhibited on 
that stage. I am ashamed to say with what rapidity I dispatched 
that hasty composition, but my friend Bannister, who saw it act by 
act, was a witness to the progress of it ; in what degree he was a 
promoter of the success of it I need not say : poor Suett also, now 
no more, was an admirable second. 

The benevolence of the audience assisted me in rescuing a for- 
lorn and persecuted character, which till then had only been brought 
upon the stage for the unmanly purpose of being made a spectacle 
of contempt, and a butt for ridicule : In the success of this comedy 
I felt of course a greater gratification, than I had ever felt before 
upon a like occasion. 

The part of Sheva presented Mr. Bannister to the public in 
that light, in which he will always be seen, when nature fairly 
drawn and strongly charactered is committed to his care. Let the 
poet give him the model, and his animation will give it the action 
and the life. 

It has also served as a stepping-stone to the stage for an actor, 
who in my judgment, (and I am not afraid of being singular in that 
opinion) stands amongst the highest of his profession ; for if quick 
conception, true discrimination, and the happy faculty of incarnat- 
ing the idea of his poet, are properties essential in the almost un- 
definable composition of a great and perfect actor, these and many 
more will be found in Mr. Dowton. Let those, who have a claim 
upon his services, call him to situations not unworthy of his best 
exertions, and the stage will feel the value of his talents. 

The 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. .51.3 

The Wheel of Fortune came out in the succeeding season, and 
First Love followed close upon its steps. They were successful co- 
medies, and very powerfully supported by the performers of them in 
every part throughout. I was fortunate in the plot of the first ; for 
there is dignity of mind in the forgiveness of injuries, which elevates 
the character of Penruddock, and Mr. Kemble's just personification 
of it added to a lucky fiction all the force and interest of a reality. 
When so much belongs to the actor, the author must be careful 
how he arrogates too much to himself. 

Of First Love I shall only say, that when two such exquisite ac- 
tresses conspired to support me, I will not be so vain as to presume 
I could have stood without their help. 

I think, as I am now so near the conclusion of these Memoirs, I 
may as well wind up my dealings with the theatres before I proceed 
any further. I am beholden to Covent-Garden for accepting my 
dramas of The Days of Yore and False Impressions— To Drury-Lane 
for The Last of the Family, The Word for Nature, The Dependant, 
The Eccentric Lover and for The Sailor's Daughter. My life has 
been a long one, and my health of late years uninterrupted ; I am 
very rarely called off by avocations of an undomestic kind, and the 
man, who gives so very small a portion of his time to absolute idle- 
ness as I have done, will do a vast deal in the course of time, espe- 
cially if his body does not stand in need of exercise, and his mind, 
which never knows remission of activity, incessantly demands to be 

employed. 

I was in the practice of interchanging an annual visit with Mrs. 

3 u 2 Blud worth 



516 MEMOIRS OF 

Bludworth of Holt near Winchester, the dearest friend of my wife. 
When I was upon those visits I used to amuse myself with trifles, 
that required no application to my books. A few from amongst 
many of these fugitive compositions appear to me not totally un- 
worthy of being arrested and brought to the bar as petti-larcenary 
pilferers of the sonnet-writing style, of which some elegant sisters of 
the Muses have published such ingenious originals, as ought to 
have secured them against interlopers, who have nothing better 
to produce than some such awkward imitations as the following — 

WIT. 

No.l. 
" How shall I paint thee, many-colour'd Wit ? 
" Where are the pallet's brilliant tints to vie 
" With the bright flash of thine electric eye ? 
" Nor can I catch the glance ; nor wilt thou sit 

" Till my slow-copying art can trace 

" One feature of thy varying face. 

" Soul of the social board, thy quick retort 
" Can cut the disputatious quibbler short, 
" Stop the dull pedant's circumstantial saw, 
" And silence ev'n the loud-tongu'd man of law. 

" The solemn ass, who dully great 
'* Mistakes stupidity for state, 

" Unbends 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 511 

" Unbends his marble jaws, and brays 
" Involuntary, painful praise. 

" Thou, Wit, in philosophic eyes 
" Can's t make the laughing waters rise ; 
" Proud Science vails with bended knee 
" His academic cap to thee, 
" And though thy sallies fly the test 
" Of truth, she titters at the jest. 

" Thrice happy talent, could'st thou understand 

" Virtue to spare and buffet vice alone, 

" Would'st thou but take discretion by the hand, 

" The world, O Wit, the world would be thine own." 

AFFECTATION. 

No. 2. 
" Why, Affectation, why this mock grimace ? 
" Go, silly thing, and hide that simpering face ! 
" Thy lisping prattle and thy mincing gait, 
" All thy false mimic fooleries I hate ; 
" For thou art Folly's counterfeit, and she, 
" W T ho is right-foolish, hath the better plea ; 
" Nature's true ideot I prefer to thee. 

» Why 



518 MEMOIRS OF 

" Why that soft languish ? Why that drawling tone ? 



a 



Art sick, art sleepy ? — Get thee hence ; begone ! 
I laugh at all those pretty baby tears, 
Those flutterings, faintings and unreal fears. 



" Can they deceive us ? Can such mumm'ries move, 
" Touch us with pity, or inspire with love ? 
" No, Affectation, vain is all thine art, 
" Those eyes may wander over every part ; 
" They'll never find their passage to the heart." 

VANITY. 

No. 3. 
" Go, Vanity, spread forth the painted wing ; 
" I'll harm thee not, gay flutterer, not I ; 

" Poor innocent, thou hast no sting,* 
" Pass on unhurt ! I war not with a fly. 
" But if the Muse in sportive style, 
" Banters thy silly freaks awhile, 
Fear not — she'll lash thee only with a smile. 



a 



a >'• 



" If thou art heard too loud of tongue, 
" And thy small tap of wit runs out 
" Too fast, and bubbles all about, 
Twere charity methinks to stop the bung. 



a 



If 



a 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 519 

" If when thou should'st be staid and sage, 

" Thou'lt take no warning from old age, 

" But still run riot, and spread sail 
" In all the colours of the peacock's tail ; 
14 If, with two hollow cheeks bedaub'd with red, 
" The Ostrich plume nods on thy palsied head, 
" And with soft glances from lack-lustre eyes 
Thou aim'st to make our heaits thy beauty's prize, 

" Then, then, Dame Vanity, beware ; 
•* Look to thyself — beshrew me, if I spare." 

AVARICE. 

No. 4. 
•* A little more, and yet a little more — 

" Oh, for the multiplying art _ < 

" To heap the still-increasing store, 
" Till it make Ossa like a wart ! 

" Oh Avarice, thou rage accurst, 

" Insatiate dropsy of the soul, 

" Will nothing quench thy sordid thirst ? 

" Were the sea gold, would'st drink the whole ? 



u 



Lo ! pity pleads — What then ? There's none — 



" The widow kneels for bread— Begone — 



Hark, 



520 MEMOIRS OF 



a 



Hark, in thine ears the orphans ciy ; 
' Thej die of famine — Let them die. — 



" Oh scene of woe ; heart-rending sight I 
" Can'st thou turn from them ? — Yes, behold — ! 
" From all those heaps of hoarded gold 
" Not one, one piece to save them ? — Not a mite.* 

" Pitiless wretch, such shall thy sentence be 
" At the last day, when Mercy turns from thee." 

PRUDERY. 

No. 5. 
" What is that stiff and stately thing I see ? 

" Of flesh and blood like you and me, 

" Or is it chissel'd out of stone, 
" Some statue from its pedestal stept down ? 

" 'Tis one and both — a very prude 

" Of marble flesh and icy blood ; 

" Dead and alive at once — behold, 
" It breathes and lives ; touch it, 'tis dead and cold. 

" Look how it throws the scowling eye 

" On Pleasure as she dances by ; 
" Quick flies the sylph, for long she cannot bear 
*' The damping rigour of its atmosphere, 

" Chill 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 521 

" Chill as the eastern fog that blights 
" Each blossom upon which it lights. 

" Say, ye that know what virtue is, declare, 
" Is this the form her votaries must wear ? 
" Tell me in time ; if such it needs must be, 
" Virtue and I shall never more agree." 

ENVY. 

No. 6. 
(See The Observer. Vol. 4. No. 94 J 

PRIDE. 

No. 7. 
" Curst in thyself, O Pride, thou canst not be 

" More competently curst by me. 
"Hence, sullen, self-tormenting, stupid sot! 
" Thy dullness damps our joys ; we want thee not. 

" Round the gay table side by side 
" Social we sit ; there is no room for Pride : 
" We cannot bear thy melancholy face ; 
" The company is full ; thou hast no place. 

" Man, man, thou little groveling elf, 
" Turn thine eyes inwards, view thyself; 

3 x " Draw 



522 MEMOIRS OF 

" Draw out thy balance, hang it forth, 
" Weigh every atom thou art worth, 
" Thy peerage, pedigree, estate, 
" (The pains that Fortune took to make thee great) 
<" Toss them all in — stars, garters, strings, 
" Heap up the mass of tawdry things, 
" The whole regalia of kings — 
66 Now watch the beam, and fairly say 
" How much does all this trumpery weigh ? 
M Give in the total ; let the scale be just, 
u And own, prOud mortal, own thou art but dust/* 

HUMILITY. 

No. 8. 
" Oh sweet Humility, can words impart 
" How much I love thee, how divine thou art ? 
" Nurse us not only in our infant age, 
*' Conduct us still through each successive stage 
" Of varying life, lead us from youth's gay prime 
<5 To the last step of man's appointed time. * 

" Wit, Genius, Learning — What are these ? 
" The painter's colours or the poet's lays, 
" If without thee they cannot please, 
" If without thee we cannot praise ? 



;.t 



Who 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 523 

" Why do I call my loy'd EUzd fair ? 

" Why do I doat upon her laded face ? 

" Nor rosy health, nor blooming youth is there; 

" Humility bestows the angel grace. 

" Where should a frail and trembling sinner lie, 
" How should a Christian live, how should he die, 
" But in thine arms, conscious Humility ? 

" Twas in thy form the world's Redeemer came, 

" And condescended to his human birth, 

" With thee he met revilings, death and shame, 

" Though angels hail'd him Lord of hcav'n and earth." 

When the consequences resulting from the French revolution 
had involved us in a war, our country called upon its patriotic vo- 
lunteers to turn out and assemble in its defence. I was still resi- 
dent at Tunbridge Wells, and, though not proprietor of a single 
foot of land in the county of Kent, yet I found myself in the hearts 
of my affectionate friends and fellow subjects; they immediately 
volunteered to mount and form themselves under my command as 
a troop of yeomen cavalry : I Mas diffident of my fitness to head 
them in that capacity, and, declining their kind offer, recommend- 
ed to them a neighbouring gentleman, who had served in the line, 
and held the rank of a field officer upon half pay. Men of their 
principles and spirit could not fail to be respectable, and they are 

3x2 now 



524 MEMOIRS OF 

now serving with credit to their captain and themselves under the 
command of the Lord Viscount Boyne, who resides at Tunbridge 
Wells, and together with the duties attendant on his commission, 
as commander of this respectable corps, executes the office of a 
magistrate for the county, not less amiable and honourable in his 
private character, than useful and patriotic in his public one. 

Some time after this, when certain leading gentlemen of the 
county began to make their tenders to government for raising corps 
of volunteer infantry, I no longer hesitated to obey the wishes of 
the loyal and spirited young men, who offered to enroll themselves 
under nry command, and finding them amount upon the muster to 
two full companies, properly officered, I reported them to our ex- 
cellent Lord Lieutenant of the county the Earl of Romney, and re- 
ceived His Majesty's commission to command them with the rank 
of Major Commandant. I had instant proof that the zeal they had 
shewn in turning out in their king and country's cause did not eva- 
porate in mere professions, for to their assiduity and aptitude, to 
their exemplary and correct observance of discipline, and strict 
obedience to their officers, the warmest testimony, that I could 
give, would only do them justice. It was winter when we first en- 
rolled, and every evening after striking work till ten o'clock at night 
we were incessantly at the drill, and after we had been practised in 
the manual, sometimes turning out for the march by moon-light, 
sometimes by torch-light. I had not a private that was not in the 
vigour of his youth, their natural carriage was erect and soldier- 
like, they fell readily into the attitude and step of a soldier on the 

march, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 52a 

march, for they were all artisans, mechanics or manufacturers of 
Tunbridge-ware, and I had not one, who did the work of a mere 
labouring peasant amongst them, whilst every officer submitted to 
the rule I laid down, and did the duty and learnt the exercise of a 
private in the line before he stood out and took command in his 
proper post. 

Our service being limited to the district of the counties of 
Kent, Sussex and Sunw, no sooner were my companies fit for duty, 
than at their unanimous desire I reported them to the Secretary of 
State as ready and willing to serve in any part of England, and this 
their loyal tender being laid before the King, His Majesty was gra- 
ciously pleased to signify to us his royal approbation of our zeal 
through his Secretary of State. 

When the volunteer infantry were dismissed at the peace of 
Amiens, my men requested leave to hold their arms and serve with- 
out pay. At the same time they were pleased to honour me with 
the present of a sword by the hands of their Serjeant Major, to the 
purchase of which every private had contributed, and which they 
rendered infinitely dear and valuable to me by engraving on the 
hilt of it—" That it was a tribute of their esteem for their beloved 
" commander." 

The renewal of hostilities has again put them under my com- 
mand, and I trust the warmth and sincerity of my unalterable at- 
tachment to them has now no need of appealing to professions. A\ e 
know each other too well, and I am persuaded that there is not one 

amongst 



526 MEMOIRS OF 

amongst them, but will give me credit for the truth when I declare, 
that as a father loves his children, so do I love them. We have now 
augmented our strength to four companies, and from the experience 
I have repeatedly had of their conduct, when upon permanent duty, 
I am convinced, that if ever the necessity shall occur for calling 
them out upon actual service, they will be found steady in the hour 
of trial, and perfectly resolved never to disgrace the character of 
Men of Kent, or tarnish that proud trophy, which they inscribe 
upon their colours. 

I humbly conceive, that if we take into our consideration the 
prodigious magnitude and extent of the volunteer system, we shall 
find it has been productive of more real use, and less incidental 
embarrassment, to government, than could have been expected. 
We must make allowances for those, who have been accustomed to 
look for the strength and resources of the nation only in its disposable 
force, if they are apt to undervalue the importance of its domestic 
army. But after the proofs, which the capital and country have 
given of the spirit, discipline and good order of their volunteers, 
both cavalry and infantry, it is not wise or politic, or liberal to dis- 
parage them as some have attempted to do; there are indeed but 
few, who have so done ; the wonder is that there are any ; but that 
a man should be so fond of his own dull jest as to risque it. upon one, 
who has too, much wit of his own not to spy out the want of it in 
others, is perfectly ridiculous; and lam persuaded, that a man of 
Colonel Birch's acknowledged merit as an officer, and established 

character 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 52] 

character for every good quality, that denotes and marks the gen- 
tleman, would infinitely rather be the object of such a pointless 
sarcasm, than the author of it. 

The man, who lives to see many days, must look to encounter 
many sorrows. My eldest son, who had married the eldest daughter 
of the late Earl of Buckinghamshire, and sister of the present, died 
in Tobago, where he went to qualify for a civil employment in that 
island ; and, some time after, death bereft me of my wife. Their 
virtues cannot need the ornament of description, and it has ever 
been my study to resign myself to the dispensations of Providence 
with all the fortitude I can summon, convinced that patience is no 
mark of insensibility, nor the parade of lamentation any evidence 
of the sincerity or permanency of grief. 

My two surviving sons are happily and respectably married, and 
have families ; I have the care, under chancery, of five children, 
relicts of the late William Ba-dcock Esquire, who married my second 
daughter, and died in my house at Tunbridge Wells, and I have the 
happiness to number nineteen grandchildren, some of whom have 
already lived to crown my warmest wishes, and I see a promise in 
the rest, that flatters my most sanguine hopes. These arc comforts, 
that still adhere to me, and whilst I have the kindness of my chil- 
dren, the attachment of my friends and the candour of the public 
to look up to, I have ample cause to be thankful and contented. 

Charles, the elder of my surviving sons, married the daughter 
of General Mathew, a truly noble and benevolent gentleman, loved 
and honoured by all who know him, and who will be ever gratefully 

remembered 



528 MEMOIRS OF 

remembered by the island he has governed, and the army he has 
commanded. 

William, the youngest, married Eliza, daughter of Mrs. Burt, 
and, when commanding His Majesty's ship the La Pique in the 
West Indies, being seized with the fever of the country at Saint 
Domingo, was sent home, as the only chance of saving him, and 
constrained to forfeit the command of that very capital frigate. 
When the young and amiable Princess Amelia was risiding at Wor- 
thing for the benefit of the sea and air, my son, then commander 
of the Fly sloop of war, kept guard upon that station, prepared to 
accommodate her Royal Highness with his boats or vessels in any 
excursions on the water, which she might be advised to take. I 
came to Worthing, whilst he was there upon duty, and was permit- 
ted to pay my homage to the Princess. It was impossible to con- 
template youth and beauty suffering tortures with such exemplary 
patience, and not experience those sensations of respect and pity, 
which such a contemplation naturally must inspire. When my 
daughter-in-law, Lady Albinia Cumberland took her turn of duty 
as lady of the bed-chamber, I took the liberty through her hands to 
offer the few stanzas which are here inserted 

" How long, just heav'n, shall Britain's royal maid 
" With meek submission these sad hours sustain ? 
" How long shall innocence invoke thine aid, 
" And youth and beauty press the couch of pain ? 



" Enough 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 5*9 

" Enough, dread pow'r, unless it be decreed, 
" To reconcile thee in these evil times, 
" That one pure victim for the whole should bleed, 
" And by her sufferings expiate our crimes. 

" And sure I am, in thine offended sight 
" If nothing but perfection can atone, 
" No wonder thy chastising rod should light 
" On one, who hath no errors of her own. 

" But spare, Ah spare this object of our love, 
" For whose dear sake we're punish'd in our fears ; 
" Send down thy saving angel from above, 
" And quench her pangs in our repentant tears. 

" Yes, they shall win compassion from the skies, 
" Man cannot be more merciful than heav'n : 
" Thy pangs, sweet saint, thy patience shall suffice, 
" And at thy suit our faults shall be forgiv'n. 

" And if, whilst every subject's heart is rack'd, 
" Our pious King presents a father's plea, 
" What heav'n with justice might from us exact 
" Heaven's mercy will remit to him and thee. 

3 y " Nor 



530 MEMOIRS OF 

'■ Nor will I doubt if thy dear mother's prayer, 
" Breath'd from her sorrowing bosom, shall prevail ; 
" The sighs of angels are not lost in air, 
K Can then Amelia's sister-suitors fail ? 

" Come then, heart-healing cherub, from on high, 

" Fresh dipt in dew of Paradise descend, 

" Bring tender sympathy with tearful eye, 

" Bring hope, bring health, and let the Muse attend. 

" Stretch'd on her couch, beside the silent strand, 
" Whose skirts old Ocean's briny billows lave, 
" From the extremest verge of British land 
" The languid fair-one eyes the refluent wave. 

" Was ever suffering purity more meek, 

" Was ever virgin martyr more resign'd ? 

" Mark how the smile, yet gleaming on her cheek, 

" Bespeaks her gentlest, best of human kind. 

" Around her stand the sympathising friends, 
" Whose charge it is her weary hours to cheer, 
" Each female breast the struggling sigh distends, 
" Whilst the brave veteran drops the secret tear. 



And 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. .331 

" And he, whose saered trust it is to guard 
•' The fairest freight, that ocean ever bore, 
" He shall receive his loyalty's reward 
" In laurels won from Gallia's hostile shore. 

" Now let thy wings their healing balm distill 
" Celestial cherub, messenger of peace ! 
" Tis done ; the tortur'd nerve obeys thy will, 
" And with thy touch its angry throbbings cease. 

" Light as a sylph, I see the blooming maid 
" Spring from her couch — Oh may my votive strain 
*' Confirmed evince, that neither I have pray'd, 
" Nor thou, my Muse, hast prophesied in vain." 

I have now completed what occurred to me to say of an old 
man, whose writings have been very various, whose intentions have 
been always honest and whose labours have experienced little inter- 
mission. I put the first pen to these Memoirs at the very close of 
the last year, and I conclude them in the middle of September. I 
had promised myself to the undertaking, and I was to proportion 
my dispatch to the measure of the time, upon which without pre* 
sumption I might venture to reckon. A3 many of my readers, ;i>» 
may have staggered under the weight of such a bulky load, will have 
a fellow feeling for me, even though I shall have sunk under it : 
but if I have borne it through with tolerable success, and given an 

3 y 2 interest 



532 MEMOIRS OF 

interest to some of the many pages, which this volume numbers, I 
hope they will not mark with too severe a censure errors and inac- 
curacies 

Quas aut incuriafudit, 
Aut humana parum cavit natura . 

I have through life sincerely done my best according to my abi- 
lities for the edification of my fellow creatures and the honour of 
my God. I pretend to nothing, whereby to be commended or dis- 
tinguished above others of my rate, save only for that good will and 
human kindness, which descended to me from my ancestors, and 
cannot properly deserve the name of virtue, as they cost no strug- 
gle for the exertion of them. I am not exempt from anger, but I 
never let it fasten on me till it harden into malice or revenge. I 
cannot pass myself off for better than I have been where I am about 
to go, and if before my departure I were now to take credit for me- 
rits which I have not, the few, which I have, would be all too few to 
atone for the deceit ; but I am thoroughly weary of the task of 
talking of myself, and it is with unfeigned joy I welcome the con- 
clusion of my task and my talk. 

I have now only to devote this last page of my book (as it is pro- 
bable I shall the last hour of my life) to the acknowledgments, which 
are due to that beloved daughter, who ever since the death of her 
mother has been my inseparable companion, and the solace of my 



age- 



Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem. 
Frances Marianne, the youngest of my children, was born to me 

in 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 533 

in Spain. After many long and dangerous returns of illness, it lias 
pleased Providence to preserve to me the blessing of her life and 
health. In her filial affection I find all the comforts, that the best 
of friends can give me; from her talents and understandin«: I derive 
all the enjoyments, that the most pleasing of companions can com- 
municate. As she has witnessed every step in the progress of this 
laborious work, and cheered every hour of relaxation whilst I have 
rested from it, if these pages, which contain the Memoirs of her fa- 
ther's life, may happily obtain some notice from the world, by whom- 
soever they are read, by the same this testimony of my devotion to 
the best of daughters shall be also read; and, if it be the will of 
God, that here my literary labours are to cease for ever, I can say 
to the world for the last time, that this is a dedication, in which no 
flattery is mixed, a tribute to virtue, in which fiction has no part, 
and an effusion of gratitude, esteem and love, which flows sincerely 
from a father's heart. 

RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 



FINIS. 



1 os don : 

Printed by J. WRIGHT, St. Johlfs Squ«r#, 

Clcrkcuwill. 



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